The Impossible Subject

This week, Ian is joined by Krysia to speak about her research on ‘The Impossible Subject: Belonging as a Neurodivergent in Congregations.’ Krysia discusses how she reflected on her own neurodivergent experience to explore exclusion and stigma in communities.

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This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.
Website: www.abdn.ac.uk/sdhp/centre-for-the-study-of-autism-and-christian-community-1725.php
 
Read Krysia’s article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23312521.2023.2249452?role=button 

Creators & Guests

Host

Krysia Waldock

Autistic PhDer: autism, belonging & religion. Assistant lecturer in RS @relstudieskent. Research assistant @UniKentCyberSec. Own views. she/they ;

What is Autism and Theology Podcast?

The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.

Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!

We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.

CAT podcast impossible subject
Zoe: Welcome to the Autism and Theology podcast, brought to you by the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.
Ian: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology podcast. I'm Ian and I'm so excited you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we will be engaging with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways that help faith and non faith communities to enable autistic people to flourish.
Our podcast episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month, with CAT Chat every third Wednesday, where your hosts share news and answer your questions. This podcast is run from the Aberdeen, from the University of Aberdeen Centre for Autism and Theology, which we've shortened to CAT. Today I'm joined by Krysia Waldock, who is the author of a relatively recently published article, the title of which I don't want to get wrong.
Krysia, do you, do you have the title handy?
Krysia: I do. So the title is The Impossible Subject, Belonging as a Neurodivergent in Congregations.
Ian: Right. And that's an interesting title, sort of thought provoking title. Do you want to say a little bit about how that how that came to be the title of the article?
Krysia: Sure. So it in a way links to why I wrote the article in the first place. So I was originally as part of my research was thinking of writing an autoethnographic chapter as it has some of the tenets of why I to do this subject and a lot of my work features kind of very heavily into qualitative methods and narrative and people's stories.
In the end it didn't make the cut for the thesis but I was going to hold on to my idea of writing up my story and kind of analyzing it through a lens of some sort, noticing that there is a lack of autistic led, neurodivergent led talking about belonging. A lot of it is talking about people doing things to people or examining from an outsider rather than as a person with lived experience interrogating how they navigate it.
And I was invited as part of a special issue for the Journal of Disability and Religion by Drs. Erin Raffety and Michael Paul Cartledge to write something on belonging and neurodivergence. And it made me think actually it was a perfect opportunity to write the chapter that I was going to write after my PhD for a journal, as a journal article for a journal, which would actually be quite favorably potentially seen. And in terms of where the title came from, it's quite interesting, it comes from links to some of my own research, where I found that whatever autistic people in particular do, so my research focuses on autistic people's experiences in churches and mosques, whatever we do as autistic people, we're never quite fully included.
And the term impossible subject came up in the literature review I did. And it was a term that was used for... Queer Muslims by Abraham and colleagues in 2009, and they took it, I believe, from some work, which is fantastic work on immigration, U. S. immigration policy in the United States by Mae Ngai. So it, the actual term comes from kind of law, society, and it went through into religious studies and it's been almost pulled, and I thought it fits really well to describe this double bind that autistic people, in my case autistic and multiply neurodivergent people, can face within church congregations.
And it sums up that We kind of, in some ways, however you slice the pie, it's never going to be quite the same as somebody who's not autistic, or who is not neurodivergent, or who is not disabled.
Ian: Sure. Yeah, and you described yourself in these terms at one point as the impossible subject, and I just thought it's a really fascinating turn of phrase that I think is thought provoking, and so it's good to sort of sort of hash that out a little bit.
Krysia: Yeah, and I guess it also links to how we do church and do mosque as well. So it doesn't have the person in isolation.
Ian: Right.
Krysia: It refers to everybody else and what we're doing around each individual, which I think is the approach I take in my research, where I use symbolic interactionism, looking at different views of inclusion.
Ian: Right.
Krysia: And experiences. And there's always another person or another object or something else. It's never someone in isolation, there's always this interplay between someone and something else.
Ian: Exactly. Yeah. There's this, this sort of social reality to it. It's never, we, we, we tend to think of people as individuals, but it's never individuals. It's always socially related.
Krysia: Yeah.
Ian: Which is, you know, part of what you rely on in this is, is social stigma theory, right?
Krysia: Yeah.
Ian: And so do you think social stigma theory, or how do you think social stigma theory could help autistic people to articulate that experience those, their experiences of exclusion?
Krysia: Sure, so I guess one of the first things I would preface this with is Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose have written a fantastic book on masking and a fantastic article about the illusion of choice in masking and passing for autistic people. And a lot of the theoretical background they pull on is actually quite similar to some of the stuff I use to frame a lot of my work.
So rather than going into a two hour lecture spiel of everything in, in their book and their article, which they've articulated so well and so clearly, I would actually just recommend actually that you can get your hands on that. It would be absolutely fantastic. But in terms of why I used it I felt it was because of the interactional aspect of how people are understood and perceived, less so that how we perceive ourselves in terms of how Goffman would posit that, especially with a lot of the reclaiming of autistic, neurodivergent and disabled identity.
Actually, a lot of that work sits in opposition to some of what he is saying, but I would say that the kind of the labelling that goes on is quite useful, especially when I was growing up. Before I knew I was autistic, I was all sorts of other things, so I was quiet, shy, clever, annoying, lazy, asking inappropriate questions.
So there's all those other things that kind of, even if we're not explicitly kind of understanding it as being autistic, which is a social identity in itself and a role that we can really come into as we come to know ourselves and know how our bodies work, how our brains work, what our needs are there's always going to be an a, a way that other people may perceive us that's going to be prejudicial or pejorative, in a way, even if it's not necessarily this stigma, there's going to be other things and I think that's how it's the interface and the interaction between the, kind of, me as an autistic person and everyone else, which I find particularly interesting.
Ian: Yeah, and those, those perceptions that other people have and their expectations and the ways that they label us, I want to come back to that in a minute, because I think that's so important, not just just in general for autistic people, but also to your account.
But I also want to before we do that, I want to back up just a minute because as you say, this is an autoethnographic account, right?
Krysia: Yeah.
Ian: And I wanted to ask about that because I think that's really important. You know, one of the things that, that sort of needs to happen is hearing more autistic people's stories and experiences firsthand, rather than having others speak for them.
Krysia: Yeah.
Ian: But, but I wonder I wanted to ask if you found autoethnography difficult at all, and I ask that because, like a lot of autistics, the way that my episodic memory works would make this really challenging for me, remembering all the specific details.
And so I just wondered if you found it difficult at all, or if it, if this came naturally to you.
Krysia: I think there were parts of it which were easier and parts of it which were more difficult. I think like you I have a very episodic memory and so there were points where I felt that there were more details at some points than other points but I guess the central facet and part of autoethnography is actually the focus on the way we tell our story rather than it being factually correct and that actually in a way helped me to be more confident in knowing, "Actually, this is my story and how I own it and what I remember."
It doesn't matter what might have happened, actually could be- from an external observer could have been perceived differently, but it's about my subjective narration and how I make sense of that, which is really, really important. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily, especially those who are perhaps, use different kind of research methods.
to kind of narrative and things like that may may see that actually because you can't replicate it it might be less reliable and less useful but actually I would almost say there's other- other markers which make it really useful and it's so important to kind of be able to anchor your narrative, knowing that it's how you remember things, and being really clear with your ethics and that side of things, how you present other people, would help make a strong piece of work, rather than it necessarily being a survey that we fill out and then we run through a data system.
I'm not, I'm not a numbers person. I mean, I did do science at A level. I can do some numbers stuff, but I don't do numbers research. I do talking to people research and collecting people's stories research. That's kind of what I do. And in a way, it helped me feel more confident actually doing my own PhD work from actually having- not played with my own story but having collected it and knowing the process and how sensitively to handle my participant stories because I've had to do the same to mine.
Ian: Sure. No, that, that makes sense. And I think, you know, sometimes we have this illusion that we can be 100 percent objective when it comes to things like this. But, you know, the reality is anytime we're remembering anything, it's always subject to our own interpretations and our own sort of self narrations.
Krysia: I guess what was more difficult for me, there's... I wrote originally about 10 pages worth of stuff and there was stuff in there that was actually really difficult to write and it was quite traumatic. So some of the stuff actually in the article that, that's not that. There was other stuff which I decided after having just written everything out that I just could not include that or I would not include it.
Because it was either too tangential, or it didn't quite fit, or it was too personal, or actually that's not something that I'm really comfortable sharing, even though it is my narrative and my story, actually there are parts that I am allowed to say I'm not comfortable analysing this.
Ian: Right.
Krysia: So I think that was actually more difficult for me, in kind of the emotional labour and the- that aspect of turmoil of working through the really sticky stuff.
Ian: Sure.
Krysia: Rather than the actual, the episodic memory, because I found when I got into the flow with the bits, actually, some of the bits I shared in the end, actually. I was just writing when I got into the flow, it was that initial block and the other difficulty and traumatic events which actually made it more challenging.
Ian: Yeah
Krysia: And I guess I would say that if you're kind of doing something like this, it's not, it's not, it's something, it's really important, but it's not easy.
Ian: Right.
That's fair. There were, you know, you talked about the deeply personal nature of it. And of course, it's going to be when it's autoethnography, but you also there are things that you said, or specific ways that you phrased things that really struck me that I, that I thought it might be good to highlight just because I think that they did a really good job of summarizing what may not be a universal autistic experience, but seems to me a good way of expressing common autistic experiences.
Krysia: Yeah.
Ian: And the first one was when you were talking about being young and feeling sort of like an outsider, you said, I saw cliques and groups like little fences of young people with no gate to let me in.
And I, I was struck by this particularly because I have just... I just read, I just did a Bible study on John 10 where Jesus in between talking about being the good shepherd talks about being a gate for the sheep and how the sheep will be able to come in and go out and find pasture. And I found myself wondering if you think maybe autistic people, people on the margins, people who have always been sort of outsiders have a greater appreciation of Jesus promising to be that gate that, that the sheep can enter in.
Krysia: I think that's really true, and really correct. And when I, when we were obviously chatting about what we would talk about today, one of the things, there's two things that immediately came to mind when you put that point forward. It firstly reminded me of Naomi Jacobs and Emily Richardson's book, At the Gates, which blatantly describes the same thing, where people have literally been shut out, and people are on the edges and on the fringes, and that appreciation of fresh knowledge, in terms of theological interpretation and how we do church, but also the kind of the caveat to that of how people have been so excluded from kind of what the main group.
But it also reminded me of Judy Neal's term edge walkers as well, which I've heard used quite a fair amount within some of the disabled Christians movement individuals that I engage with where people are, the edges and the fringes are seeing the change and what's actually going on on the ground.
And that really encapsulates what you were saying about John 10 and the Good Shepherd and how people on the margins can have this greater appreciation, even if they're not appreciated by others, perhaps who are more kind of closer to the middle of a group or have social comfort with people around them.
There is definitely something There about seeing something that not everybody else does.
Ian: Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's just so important and such an important part of autoethnography and hearing autistic stories is that that anyone who's been marginalized or been shoved to the side or been excluded has I think unique insights that necessarily, that aren't necessarily available to everyone who, who who just goes to church or hears the same passage.
And so I, I, it's just, that was just a, a, a sort of it just, it just highlighted for me how important this, this actually is to hear.
Krysia: Definitely. And I think part of the, the thought process I had when writing my Story and writing the autoethnography was, although it is my story, and I found this with collecting the stories for my own PhDs, actually, there's reflections of my story and everybody else's story, and that even though it is my story, then people might identify with it, and it can actually almost help people find their words, because there's so, certainly when I was growing up, I didn't necessarily have the words, to understand what I was feeling, so it was almost a hermeneutical injustice.
And actually we can give people, hand people over the words, the experiences to go, this is what it is. It's not just something that, you know, people don't understand, so they're going to brush under the carpet. This is real. This is tacit. This is real.
Ian: Yeah
Krysia: And it's not just for autistic people. I think this applies for a wide range of folk who we marginalise within churches.
Ian: Yeah, and you're right. It's, it's empowering to give people the language to actually express their reality. And, and sort of along those lines, one of the, one of the other things that you said is, you said, "my reaction to being 'caught out' is of particular analytical interest. I had been exposed as unable to deal with the unexpected raised voices and being 'wrong'." and I love the use of quotation marks there because this is, this is about an experience that you had as a kid feeling screamed at by an adult and not really knowing how to, how to deal with it, right?
Krysia: Yeah,
Ian: But, and there's something to the use of the word wrong in that sentence that I think the quotation marks were certainly deserved because well, I guess I'll put this as a question. Do you think that being autistic being stigmatized, there's this sense that if you're found out, it's not just the same as getting something wrong or giving an incorrect answer, but it's a matter of being found out as being somehow existentially, fundamentally wrong?
Krysia: I think there is an aspect of that, because it's what we frame as right and wrong is framed by the neuro normative standards that kind of guide how we do things in the world, which obviously seeps into churches, even though and I certainly found this in my research, people will say, "Oh, we're inclusive."
And they'll quote various Bible verses at you. And then you present something else to them and different other, other identities that they have may shape how they behave and react. So it's not that they- not wanting to be inclusive. It's that other parts, multiple identities we have may shape and guide what we do and how we behave and the thoughts we have.
And I think for me, in a way, this links because even before I knew I was autistic, there were times that I just didn't feel like other people. And because I put so much effort into being like other people, if you get caught out, your fundamental humanness is questioned. Now, whether that is right or wrong, it's a completely different question.
And I would argue with a lot of the work being done by yourself and others at CAT around Imago Dei, actually, that's, it's in complete disjuncture to what's actually going on in terms of people feeling that they're wrong, feeling that they have a deficit or that they're kind of, their reality is not right.
Because we know, because Imago Dei would actually state something quite different and that there isn't this wrongness and that there isn't a mistake. It's more how we interact and who, how things are shaped around us and the impact on us, in this case as an autistic person. Which is leading to me feeling wrong, and I think that's why I really wanted to use the question, the quotation marks, because I'm not wrong, but I felt wrong, and that is, it encapsulates how I felt and in some ways still can do when I navigate scenarios and spaces which aren't quite safe.
Ian: Right. Right. And you're right. It just sort of brings back to those expectations and sort of labels and perceptions that other people have that, that we feel, you know, we always sort of feel deeply.
Krysia: Yeah, definitely. And it almost questions, in a way, some of the fundamental assumptions that people may have about this label we call autism or autistic people.
So think of autistic people can't have empathy and they can't think what other people are thinking. Well, actually, and if you're saying that's part of what it means to be human, that's actually quite a dangerous track to go down. And actually, there's lots of different experiences that I know. I know autistic people who do find it really difficult to put themselves in other's shoes.
And I know autistic people who are incredibly hyper empathetic and will tiptoe around people so as to not make any mistakes. So I think that you've got different tensions. co dependently existing rather than just one certainty of Autistic being
Ian: yeah and one of the other things that you said that I thought was a, was a a sort of brilliant way of phrasing what it feels like to mask and know that you're not necessarily succeeding. You said at one point, "parts of me would leak out". And I thought that was just such a, such a brilliant way of putting it because it's, it seems like a fairly common autistic experience of realizing that the mask can't hold forever and it's going to slip sometimes, but not really, you know, you're not really able to do anything about it because you can't maintain it perfectly.
You can't sort of manage everyone else's expectations perfectly. Is that sort of what you, what you were going for? Is that what you...?
Krysia: Definitely, because I've always felt especially in spaces like school and some workplaces where I've been that I've had to put this armor on which effectively is masking And it's that which they see and that which they understand And it's held so tightly and strongly.
I know that if they saw what was inside they wouldn't like it, or it would turn out wrong for me, certainly there has been one, one point, one job I had where I quickly got the hint, if I disclosed that I was autistic, the door, I would be shown the door quite quickly. So it's kind of knuckled down on that.
That you have to go so hard, but you can only grip so tight. It's almost like when you're carrying your really heavy bags back from Tesco or Walmart or whatever shop you have. If it's really heavy, you're going to grip really hard with your knuckles, and they're going to go white and red, and it's going to pull, and at some point you're going to have to put down the shopping bags, or you're going to have to get the bus.
You can't carry the load forever, and if you think of it as in a really heavy load, which it effectively is, and... I think this is where the illusion of choice paper that Amy Pearson and Kieran Rose did is so good because it articulates that it is, it is this illusion of choice that isn't, it's not, "oh, I'm going to choose to do this."
It is from trauma and oppression and the way we do things in the world that really puts this puts this strain and buckle and forces people into a mask. And it's not just that. I know that there's people who would say that people perhaps women do X, or autistic women might do this more, or autistic men may do this more.
But actually, when we really pick it apart, there's so much more going on, and the social world is just so complicated and complex. And that's before we even head into the territory of, if I have a meltdown in Tesco, as a white person, people would probably think I'm a bit bonkers. But I would not be handcuffed and popped into the back of the local police van unlike some of my neighbours who are black and who are Asian.
So there's, perception just really is important in terms of what we deem as wrong and how hard and tight we have to pull and how much we can't put our shields down.
Ian: Yeah. You know, I've seen a few different papers on autism recently talk about not autistic masking, but autistic camouflage, which I think is an interesting way of phrasing because it paints it as a defensive measure, right?
Krysia: Yes.
Ian: Rather than, you know, masking maybe sounds like intent to deceive or something along those lines. And it's just, it's just interesting to think about it as camouflaging. It just offers a sort of different valence to it, I think.
Krysia: Yes. And I think certainly what I came up in the conversations I had with autistic people is we have lots of different sociological terms and psychological terms to describe this concept of autistic, autistic masking.
But the people I spoke to were just calling it masking. However, they cut the cookie, slice the cake. It was the, it was, "I mask". That was the words that they used.
Ian: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, I don't mean to say we should replace that language. It's just interesting to think about it in different terms.
Krysia: It definitely is because I, it comes back into the illusion of choice.
It's not, it is something that is imposed and that is sat within what's going on around us.
Ian: Exactly. Exactly. And on that note and talking about sort of the social expectations that are that are sort of levied upon us. There are two moments where you where you describe something about it to that effect that really struck me. One was early on, where you said, "even though I didn't know I was autistic, I did recognize how I needed to be acutely aware that how I appeared to others in social contexts impacted what attitudes were held of me. I knew that if I let the mask slip, that there would be repercussions".
And then, of the moment that you started to own being autistic, you said, "it was at that moment some of my boundaries were redrawn, and a new understanding of myself began." And then later, "I was not managing the impressions I left on others so much." And I, I just, that, that resonated really deeply with me because I think one of the less well known or less well understood aspects of being autistic is that in addition to- to, to sort of managing all of the sensory input and all the social cues that feel like a foreign language, there's also this idea for a lot of, that a lot of autistic people seem to internalize that we're responsible for managing other people's impressions or perceptions of us, which again is just really fascinating because it's one of those expectations that people impose on us that we're supposed to maintain.
And I just wondered if that's if you if you had anything to say about the way that that feels or how that how that related to your experience.
Krysia: I really liked the term of a kind of expectations. That's something that's come up a lot in my research in terms of perceptions and what we expect of people and a lot of the expectations we have of people within a Christian or a church context obviously they'll have the, the leak, what I would call the leaking from non-church places, ideas and ideals that people bring in off the street of people who are neuro norm, being neuro normative and able bodied norms as well certainly, one of the conversations I had, I've had during my PhD was one participant who had just had a leg operation and he couldn't stand up in church to sing hymns.
And when he, when they said at the beginning, oh, everyone please stand, he felt really excluded because he, he, he couldn't do that, you know, he was the only one sat down and I think it shows in a way that there are times where we can't manage our impressions of others and I think in terms of expectations how that links to boundaries is really interesting because I know that I have had a lot of people-pleasing behaviour in the past, and I think this stems from a, what we were talking about earlier, of not being caught out as wrong, to try and basically save my own skin I would try and appease everyone else's expectations of me and I think when we look at who's responsible for that, that gets really, really interesting because there isn't really one answer.
Some people will say it's that person's responsibility. Some people will say it's the whole group's responsibility. Somebody will say, oh, it's someone up there in the higher echelons of the church's responsibility. And it's almost like, almost like a game of hot potato or pass the parcel where you pass it round and it inevitably gets left on to kind of left on the person that can't pass it on to the next person.
And It's just so interesting. I don't think there are any kind of answers or solutions as yet but I do think the question of responsibility and how that links up into boundaries and into expectations really helps us unpick some of the social experience that's going on for people who are marginalized within churches and whose expectations are we adhering to and where they come from.
Because certainly something I've heard when I've spoken to people about things like autism training in the past, people have, I have heard that people perceive autism training as something outside of the church and quite secular.Which is really interesting when we think that actually if we're all made in God's image, therefore it's absolutely everybody's concern to make sure that We don't necessarily have to know everything about autism or any disability or support need or kind of way of being.
But we do need to know that we can't just kind of go, well, that's not a concern for me. Because it's a human concern and I find that really, really interesting.
Ian: Yeah, i, I I'm fond of saying that we don't, we don't as Christians have the luxury of saying that's not my responsibility or that's not my concern.
And I think that's, that's you know, we have a tendency to say, well, this is just the, this is just the society that we live in. And so, you know, I wish it were otherwise, but, but we can't do anything about that. But you're right that that that's always socially maintained. And if we're not actively working against it, then we are, in some sense, even implicitly contributing to it.
Krysia: Because it almost, in a way, comes back to the notion that when two or more of us gather, I am there. Therefore, the kind of the idea of being church is about people coming together in itself. So it's socially constructed. And yes, it's really important. It's not to say that we as humans kind of created this idea of church, but it's the idea that we bring all our baggage into church with us and that and that is fine.
You know, God didn't want perfect people in church, but it's what we do with it and how we move forward, which is really, really, really of interest to me.
Ian: Yeah, yeah. And, and so at the end of this, as you, as you've compiled this autoethnographic account one of the things that you say toward the end after talking about being the impossible subject in, in church communities is that, that "that poses the question of how we should frame belonging and if normative belonging should in fact be a goal in theological discourse, sociological and theological research and practice. Perhaps a better goal is the facilitation of spaces where neurodiverse relationships can thrive and power relationships are examined."
So not to just ask you the question that your article raises, but do you think that belonging in church communities is even possible? Is there a way to get there? Or do you think that we're better served by just focusing on paving the way by paying more attention to the details?
Krysia: I think that's a really good question, and I think that a lot of the work that's often done, kind of, to help disabled and autistic people and people with a learning disability, so, or the kind of, or global audience, people with intellectual disabilities actually is often done to, and there's a lot of checklists, and there's a lot of charts, and there's a lot of kind of observing And that almost poses a kind of road map of if you do this, we would expect this outcome.
And that's what I'm very hesitant to say, because I don't, belonging isn't a transaction. It's not something that you can just pop your two pence in the two pence machine, and then you get, you know, you get your sweeties out of. It's how we work together in terms of relationships and understanding. There is this aspect of fine details to it.
I do think belonging can grow and can exist, but I don't think it's necessarily as roadmapped as perhaps some other things that we might call outcomes, and I don't think we should really do that because in a way then we're doing stuff to people rather than working as a community with. I think communication is a massive linchpin in this, in terms of how we communicate with people, how we set up what we do, how we, the expectations we have.
But I don't think there's necessarily a one step, kind of, there isn't a set of things you can do, it's more about looking at the culture within your particular group or church and everybody coming together and seeing how each person fits, because different people will have different things that merit them to belong.
Some people might just feel they're quite happy belonging, grabbing a tea and coffee at the end of church and having a natter with people. Some people may feel that actually for them belonging is being a valued part of the community and being able to contribute to church life. Some people may feel that belonging means that they have friends in church.
So there's lots of different ways- kind of angles that it's just so nebulous. And that's reflected in the academic literature. No one really has a definitive definition of belonging. People try, they don't do a very good job of it because it's never encapsulating everything. It's very idealistic. And I think the key point is almost how we facilitate positive relationships where people can thrive, feel comfortable be respected both ways and examine the kind of the lay of the land.
And I obviously I said this about kind of power dynamics, but there are people who will perhaps have more of a stake and have more of a control in what goes on in the church if they have perhaps a leadership position, or they've been there for a long time. And then people perhaps who have less, so there's, it's a very, it's a dynamic part of the embedded culture.
And in a way it frustrates me that there isn't something I can go, yes, you can do this because as researchers we want to improve things, we do things to find things out. But it's almost what- what I found both through my own autoethnography and the kind of the years of research that I've done is there isn't really a one step plan, but there are lots of little small things we can think about, start, use.
I mean, one very concrete suggestion would actually be there's some fantastic resources out there on kind of what it's like to be autistic in church, particularly Ann Memmott's guidance. So if churches haven't got their hands on that. That's definitely something to have, and even though it's not necessarily about this is how people belong, boom, boom, boom, it does have about how people experience, how what people might feel, how we talk about people.
So it's all about relationships and respect, and it comes into some of the kind of things that I was saying might be steps towards how we facilitate what's going on in terms of belonging,
Ian: Right. Yeah It's and and there's frustration to that because it would be nice to just have that checklist that we could do right like did that, now we're now now people belong but but you're right.
It's not it's just not that simple
Krysia: Yeah, and it's it's a shame because it Obviously, it would be easier, but we're humans, we're complex. We like to make things as complex as possible.
Ian: Yes, yes. But that's, you know we're about, since we're about out of time, it seems like a good, that seems like a good stopping point, because that's a good point to end on in, in sort of reiterating just how important it is to hear these stories and to understand different perspectives, because even when you're talking about a very narrow section of the disability community, like autistics or neurodivergence, it's not, there isn't it, there still isn't a one size fits all approach. And so we need to hear from stories like yours about how, how it's gone on the ground and how people have experienced church communities and, and where we've gotten it wrong and, and, you know, where we've gotten it right too.
Krysia: Definitely, because there's definitely been times in my story where people have got it right, and even though the title may not look like that, there were, there have been places where I have felt, felt like I fitted and belonged, and it was based on relationships where it did work, and then obviously when there's sometimes, those relationships move on, obviously clergy move on, people change, people change jobs, people might move because the world is dynamic. It's not a stable entity, just because it fits at that point doesn't mean it's going to stay kind of nice and cheery forever.
Ian: Right. Well, Krysia, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. It's been a pleasure talking with you and hearing from you. And thank you so much. Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Krysia: I was going to say, if anyone would like to read my article, it's available on a Bitly link.
So bit.ly/neurodivergent-impossible-subject.
Ian: Excellent. Yeah, and I can't recommend it enough. And thank you as well to our listeners. If you have any questions you can message us @autismtheology on Twitter or Instagram or send us an email at [e-mail].
We'd love to hear from you, even if just to say hi. And our next CAT Chat episode will be out on November 15th, where we will be answering some questions from our listeners. So if you have any questions, do send them our way.
Zoe: Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology Podcast. If you have any questions for us, or just want to say hi, please email us at [e-mail]. Or find us on Twitter @autismtheology.