Episode 183: Supporting mental health in the Black autistic community – with Janelle Johnson

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Before we get started with today’s episode, I’d like to play you a short promo for The Other Autism, a podcast hosted by Kristen Hovet that explores late-diagnosed autism, with a focus on autistic women. Kristen also has a blog called The Other Autism, which really helped with my discovery and understanding of my own autism, so I’m especially happy to feature her podcast here. You can find a link to her podcast in the show notes of this episode. Here’s the promo.

Promo for The Other Autism podcast begins:

Kristen Hovet: Have you ever wondered if you or someone you love is autistic? Have you recently been diagnosed as autistic in adulthood? My name is Kristen Hovet and I’m the host of The Other Autism podcast. I was diagnosed as autistic in my thirties, and now I want to spread the word about all things related to late diagnosed autism and the female autism phenotype.

I would love for you to join me as I explore the latest in autism research, answer listener questions, speak with autistic individuals, self-advocates, and neurodivergent experts to challenge myths and stereotypes about autism and autistic people. You can find The Other Autism on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Promo for The Other Autism podcast ends.

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

On today’s episode I’m speaking with Janelle Johnson, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Janelle is a wife, mother, and founder of Bridges Family Life Center, a systemic therapy and consulting group practice near Raleigh, North Carolina. An award-winning educator and innovative mental health leader, she is often sought out for her social justice advocacy regarding intersectionality of ableism, sexism, and racism. She currently serves as president of the North Carolina Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. A graduate of North Carolina State University and Chapman University, she’s returned to her first alma mater as a doctoral student in the Educational Equity program.

Janelle, welcome to the podcast.

Janelle Johnson: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Carolyn Kiel: I’m really interested to learn more about your research and your story. So all of the amazing work that you’ve been doing.

So you have discovered in recent years as an adult that you’re autistic. So how, and, and when did you make that discovery?

Janelle Johnson: Great question, Carolyn. My story is a little unique. Every time I tell it, I chuckle because it’s an odd thing.

I am, I’m a therapist and I’ve been doing therapy for about 11 years. And so about six years ago I found myself sitting in front of a Black man who I came to diagnose as autistic. And it wasn’t the first time that I had given, well, a preliminary diagnosis of autism, like referred him for more testing. It wasn’t the first time that I had done that, but it was the first time I’d done it for a Black person.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh!

Janelle Johnson: And so talking with him and finding about out about his story and giving him this diagnosis, was like looking in a mirror. It was the, it was the most odd experience I’ve ever had as a therapist. And he left and I took a break and I went out to my car and I cried, and I called my mom and I said, mom, I’m autistic.

And she was like, what? And I said, I’m telling you, I’m autistic. And she was like, oh, I guess that makes sense. And I’m like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense! But like, why are we just, why, why did I not think of it? My son got diagnosed, or a preliminary diagnosis when he was two.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And so this is three years after that, almost. And so yeah, it was an interesting experience. So I haven’t received an official diagnosis, but my therapist, the last therapist that I had, we did quite a bit of work on that, and she agreed with me. She wanted to know, did I wanna go get an official diagnosis? And I’m like, eh, you know, maybe, maybe not.

I haven’t decided if I’m gonna go through the whole process or not. I don’t have a, it’s time consuming and I’m busy.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Exactly.

Janelle Johnson: But, but yes. The quasi diagnosis I’ve got, it’s been eye opening.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. It’s interesting that you mentioned that you described it to your mother and family, and first they were surprised and then they’re like, well, yeah, that makes sense. It’s like, yeah, but like why is this just coming up now, of all things? So I’m curious, I guess, you know, a lot of times when you discover that you’re autistic as an adult, you kind of look back on your life and your childhood and try to see, you know, reevaluate situations you were in and things that you did in that new lens of realizing that you’re autistic.

So I guess, what was it like for you growing up and have you kind of looked back and said, well, maybe that was because I was autistic, that I reacted or felt this or that way?

Janelle Johnson: Oh, sure. I have always been different. I’ve always had challenges with social interactions. I was the kid that played by myself on the playground for forever. I mean, as long as most of my memories I, I’m playing by myself. And not because I was being bullied or anything, it’s just I chose to play by myself. Like I didn’t want to play with other kids. And I always just felt different. I always felt like I was odd or, you know, I didn’t get the things that other people got or just understood. It didn’t make sense to me.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And even smaller things like, you know, speech differences. My, my family has all these funny stories about how I used to talk as a toddler and, and, you know, preschooler that make a lot of sense now. And yeah, just always been different. Always been different and now it makes sense why.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting. I feel like, and, and everybody’s story is a little different, but sometimes there are like very obvious or quote unquote textbook signs that someone might be autistic at a young age, but I feel like at least a lot for girls and women, people assigned female at birth, that, that those signs aren’t always as clear. So, but there is that sense of like, I’m feeling different from other people, or I’m maybe more solitary. Maybe you have a few friends, but you know, the, the social interactions and the communications are different. So,

Janelle Johnson: Oh, spot on, spot on. The, I remember in in, maybe it was fourth or fifth grade. I struggled early on, but I don’t know, it was just the right combination of factors and a great teacher really saw what I was capable of. And I ended up being an gifted program and all that jazz. And so in fifth grade they wanted me to skip a grade because I was so far ahead. And my mom told them, you know, like, she can’t handle that socially, she can’t handle that. That would destroy her. She’s kind of barely hanging on now. I’m a little, I’m a little ahead or behind age wise. I’m a year younger than most of the folks. In, in my, in my grade, I was.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And so she’s like, you know, she’s already a year younger. She’s already really struggling. I can’t imagine putting her in middle school right now.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: I, it just wouldn’t work like you just, you know, keep supplementing what she has, but we can’t, we can’t let her skip a grade. Which was a great decision, honestly. It really was. But that’s, that’s how profound my social challenges were, where my mom was like, no, I’m not gonna let my child skip a grade.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: So yes, I struggled. I didn’t make friends. If, if I made friends, it was because she kind of like facilitated me meeting someone.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: Because she’s very social. And so that was the way that I had any friends at all, but I, I didn’t make friends on my own at all.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it’s good that your mom was aware of your, you know, your, your social capacity and kept you back from skipping that grade, cuz yeah, that’s a pretty major thing. And it’s really interesting the whole intersection of being considered a, a gifted student, but also neurodivergent or autistic or, you know, ADHD or

Janelle Johnson: Right.

Carolyn Kiel: Because I mean, certainly, back when I was in school, if, if you were a good student and you made good grades, it, like, it kind of didn’t matter what else was going on in your life.

Janelle Johnson: Exactly.

Carolyn Kiel: Like people kind of didn’t really notice the social thing or the struggles or when you’re a teenager, the, you know, the feelings and the, you know, all those issues.

So yeah, that’s, that’s its own unique challenge because people kind of look at a kid that’s making pretty good grades or great grades, it’s like, oh, they’re fine. Like they’re, they’re totally fine. And it’s tough.

Janelle Johnson: Yeah. For sure.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. So you do a lot of really amazing work. You’re, you started your own business around marriage and family therapy, and you also do business consulting.

And I, I think I had heard on another podcast somewhere that psychology was kind of almost like an, an early interest for you, that you’ve been interested in that since you were a teenager. So how did you discover that love for psychology at a young age?

Janelle Johnson: Well My family adopted when I was 12 .And so there was just a lot of challenges that we, we had challenges in our own family, because other members of my family are also neurodivergent and hadn’t been diagnosed besides me. And so we had this kinda hodgepodge collection of folks that were living in this, in this home together, trying to make the best of life, not really having the, the supports that we probably would’ve benefited from. And then we, and then we adopted on top of that. So, we adopted two girls.

And so there was a situation where a family member of my sisters, my adopted, was adopted by a family we knew. And they called us one, well called my mom one night, and I was 14 at the time, called my mom one night and talked about some challenges they were having and how they went to a psychologist to get help and the psychologist told them that there was nothing to help them with, basically. Like everything was fine, you know. And they thought it was odd because, you know, the situation that they were facing, they wanted help with managing their child, their, their adopted child. And they were just told basically like, it’s not really an issue and there’s really nothing I can do to help you with that.

And it frustrated me. I, I, I, it frustrated me. Their situation frustrated me, but then I later came to understand that our family situation also frustrated me, like, where were we supposed to go for help? Who was supposed to give us guidance on how to manage all these different traumas and, and neurodivergence differences and who was supposed to help us manage all this stuff? Who was supposed to tell us how to do this so that we didn’t have to keep running up against all these problems? That’s what got me asking questions like, why didn’t that psychologist help help that family? And so I took, I had the opportunity to take an honors psychology class at uc Davis online when I was 15. And so that’s how long I’ve been studying psychology since I was 15 years old.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. Yeah. It’s powerful when your interests are really rooted in your, your own experience. I totally see how it fuels that, that passion and that fire to, to learn more, and it sounds like really to be able to make the difference in people’s lives, that in that example, that psychologist wasn’t able to do or able to help.

Janelle Johnson: Exactly, exactly. I found myself asking later on when I started my master’s program, like what, what spurred that? And we don’t know. Was that because this was a Black family in, in white rural Kansas? Was that because you know, this is, this is a Christian family and, and the psychologist wasn’t comfortable in helping with all of those things that go into that? Was it because, we don’t know. Like, we don’t know. We don’t know what it was. And at the end of the day, that family and families like mine weren’t getting what they needed back then. And we didn’t have anywhere safe to go. We didn’t have Black clinicians that, or Black or brown clinicians that were doing the work where we could go somewhere and not have to explain all these other factors that go into being a Black family.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: That’s, you know, and have someone really understand us. So that’s what spurred, spurred my work for I guess the first 15 years of my career or 10 years of my career. It’s, it’s been rewarding work. I’ll say that for sure. For sure.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. So as a marriage and family therapist, you know, in, in terms of some of the issues that you help people with, I, I imagine it’s a whole wide range of issues, like so many different things did happen in in families.

Janelle Johnson: Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: But do you find, do you get to serve a lot of Black and brown clients? Do you find that there are, well, I imagine there are certainly, you know, other trauma related issues that come into that, just from the experience of being a Black or brown person in the United States and how that flows into, you know, to the family and to marriage, and how that manifests as well.

Janelle Johnson: Definitely, definitely. That’s one of the reasons why I chose family psychology or to be a marriage and family therapist specifically. Because psychology is kinda like a, a pretty broad umbrella.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: but it’s what resonated with me most. Most Black and brown families we’re more, we, we come from collectivist cultures and so I felt like being a family therapist and learning how to address things systemically through relationship, how to address mental health challenges or trauma or what have you. Like that’s just in alignment with being a Black person. Like we care about community, we care about connection. And so that’s why I chose it. I felt like more Black and brown families would engage in therapy through that modality.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And so yes, that’s, that’s what we’ve seen. I think it’s a combination of the modality that we’ve chosen, and also that we are Black and brown providers. So I have, there’s a team of seven of us, and six of us are Black.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And so I would say almost 70%, about 65% of our clients are Black or brown. And they come because they see what we look like. And we hear it over and over again. I, I was looking for a Black therapist. I was looking for a person of color. We hear it over and over and over.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. That’s important cuz the whole field of psychology, although it’s based on standards and and practices. It’s, there’s so much subjectivity that goes into it, whether you’re getting a diagnosis, even getting an autism diagnosis really depends on who you get and what, how they’ve been trained and who they talk to, what their life experiences are, how they’ve been educated, even just that one small subset. So it must, I can totally see how it’s so valuable to have Black and brown therapists where at a minimum the client doesn’t have to go in and try to explain like all these other issues to a white therapist who hasn’t had that experience or hasn’t educated themself on it. So yeah, that’s really powerful.

Janelle Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And it, especially with that overlap where we’re talking about in essence, and this is something that a lot of mental health professionals don’t think about, but we’re serving a disabled population. Everyone that walks in our doors that we give a diagnosis to, we’re saying that they are they’re, the environment is disabling to them because it doesn’t accommodate their anxiety or their depression or their, or their ADHD or their autism or what have you. And so we’re talking about serving multiple marginalized folks. And the, the, the nuance that’s required to do that is something that I don’t think we give enough attention to.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: That’s, that’s a lot of the work that I’ve been focused on for the last three or four years is digging into that nuance, after having started at the practice and seeing what we were experiencing of the first two or three years. I’m like, I’m, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing over and over and over. So many systemic issues are leading to these mental health challenges. People being triggered from past traumas. The, the intergenerational trauma that’s being passed down through the generation is, there’s just so much to it.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And those are just environments that people, you know, there’s no easy fix to that. It’s like, well, you can change your thinking, but at the same time, the, the systemic racism, the intergenerational trauma, the constant news cycle of, you know, racist events happening again and again is always gonna be there.

So it’s like you can’t change your environment really. So that’s, yeah. That’s gotta be such, such a challenge. So it’s good to have therapists who understand that experience.

Janelle Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and we love it too. And it’s cool, it’s cool not just because of the work that we’re doing with the community here in North Carolina, but also the experience that we have working together.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: Being Black and brown therapists who are working in an environment where we don’t have to navigate a lot of those challenges that we do in other work settings, on top of the, the stressors of being a therapist. It’s a, it’s I think I’m equally excited to provide an environment like that for the therapists that work at Bridges, just as equally excited to provide that to them as I am the services that we’re providing to the community at large. And then to be able to, to kind of codify what we’re doing and teach other therapists and teach other educators, other healthcare workers about the things that we’ve learned over the last five years is really cool.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, totally. A great supportive and understanding and, you know, validating work environment as well. Absolutely.

And in addition to the therapy work that you’ve been doing, you’re also now doing research in educational equity, and that’s really fascinating. I heard a little bit about that on another podcast as well. It just sounds like an amazing program. And it’s at your alma mater as well, so local to you. So yeah, tell me how did you discover that program and get involved with that?

Janelle Johnson: Oh my gosh, I always tell people like, it had to be God. I’m a Christian person, and so there’s some things, there’s just like, there’s not enough coincidence and fate to explain that.

So long story short, I ended up finding myself sitting in front of my old, my dean to my old college. So I was at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at NC State when I was in undergrad. And whole bunch of things happened where I’m sitting in a meeting with him. Long story. And we got to talking, and somehow or another I found myself talking to the dean about autism in North Carolina and how the prevalence of autism diagnosis for Black boys was on the rise. And that’s where we were seeing this like huge skyrocket in, in the rates of diagnosis. And I said, we don’t think about it. But I said, you know, if you picture, what do you see when you see an autistic person? He said, I see a white male, a young white child.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: Male, male child. And I’m like, yeah, but in North Carolina that’s really transferring. Like, you’re just as likely to see a Black boy as you are a white boy. And I don’t know how we got on the topic, but he was like, okay, these are all the people I want you to meet. And I was there to talk about IO psychology. That’s, I thought I wanted to do industrial organizational psychology. I wanted to stay in the psychology field.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And he was like, I know you said this is what you’re interested in, but I want you to meet Dr. Pearson. She studies autism in Black families and I think that you would really enjoy meeting her. And I’m like, I know of her! Yes. Sure.

And so, you know, she got the email from him and, you know, who’s gonna turn down an opportunity to meet someone the dean says you should meet? So she, she thought, she said, oh yeah, I’ll meet with you. And we got to talking and she found out that I was autistic and she told me about this program I didn’t know existed. It had just started two years prior, the educational equity program. And she’s like, you know, you should apply. You know, I’m one of the faculty. I would love to work with you. And I’m like, wow! I had no plans of doing educational equity before. But you’re right, it makes sense.

Like the reason I’ve been doing what I’m doing for the last 20 years is because, the last 10 years is because I want to improve education and healthcare for disabled Black and brown people. And if that’s the larger thing, then, you know, why not take some time doing some research to advocate for that?

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. Yeah. That’s, that is amazing. And your combination of having that real lived experience through the therapy that you’ve been doing for 10, 15 years prior to be able to then apply that to research is, is really powerful. Like having those two types of experiences together.

Janelle Johnson: And three types of experience with the lived experience of being autistic.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm!

Janelle Johnson: And being a parent of an autistic child.

Carolyn Kiel: Yes.

Janelle Johnson: So it’s just a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of things that I’m able to bring to the lab that I’m excited to be able to contribute ways that I’ve been pushed to grow and develop and that I didn’t know was possible. Doctoral programs stretch you. They really do. But it’s a good stretching.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s cool. So are you doing research specifically on the intersectionality of autism and race, or is it disability as a broader category and race, ethnicity?

Janelle Johnson: So my research specifically is on disability and race, the intersectionality of disability and race. But in the lab, Dr. Pearson’s work in the lab that we’re doing there is specifically Black and Latine families and autism, that intersection.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow!

Janelle Johnson: So the research I’m doing in the lab, that’s, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years. And I, I in my own dissertation work that I’m putting together, I’ve been thinking about narrowing it down to neurodiversity because, you know, disability is such a, such a large umbrella. But yeah that’s, that’s my vein.

Carolyn Kiel: That, that’s really awesome. And that research is so, so necessary and so needed. There’s such a, an enormous gap in, in research on autism and Black and brown families so that’s, that’s really incredible. That’s really gonna make a huge difference, and that’s just so exciting to be able to contribute that!

Janelle Johnson: Yes. I’m, I’m, I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled. My work is really focused on the voices of neurodivergent or disabled students and faculty and learners in the community. There’s something to be said about how valuable our lived experience is and what it can contribute to the academy that hasn’t been tapped into.

And we’re seeing, like, I think what spurred this thought in my mind is living through covid. Disabled folks, we have been telling the world all this time and what would make things work better.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: and nobody would listen to us until Covid. And then it’s like, oh, all of a sudden we can find out how to do everything online and you can work from home all you want.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And yes, we said we couldn’t provide that kind of service online before, but we actually can. And you don’t have to come to the doctor’s office as much. You could be doing virtual, just, you know, all these things that we’ve been needing and we’ve been saying that we’ve been needing. And everybody wanted to listen later. But it wasn’t credited to us that we were the ones who had been telling the world that this needed to happen. And so my, the focus of my research is like, how do we, how do we tap into what, what the most marginalized folks are saying is needed? How do we tap into that untapped knowledge and bring it forward to teach everybody else the things that we know?

How do we, how do we bring value to that? Because it is valuable. What we know, our life, our lived experiences is very valuable.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. As you said, the, you know, it tends to be more marginalized people, whether it’s, you know, disabled people Black or brown people who experience those issues first, and are often the ones trying to raise the alarm and, and educate. And yeah, so it’s really frustrating when only when it impacts wider populations that people say, oh, this is an issue that I discovered! It’s like, no, we’ve been talking about this for decades. So.

Janelle Johnson: Yeah, it’s called interest convergence. It’s this phenomenon where we, we, we don’t get what we need until it coincides with the, with the powers that be, with their interests. Then we get what we need. But it, otherwise it’s, it’s not important. So the research that I’d like to do is a way to combat some of that with my own lived experience, that, and I’m not the only educated or professional or entrepreneur or whatever that is neurodivergent or that’s disabled. There’s lots of us. And it would be cool to tap into like the things that we know and not just us, anyone that is neurodivergent or disabled. We don’t have to be educated in order to be a contributor to knowledge that we need to make life better.

Carolyn Kiel: Absolutely. Are there any early findings from your research that you’re able to share at this point yet?

Janelle Johnson: Not yet. And I, and I only say that because cause I’m still narrowing down on what the, what I like to research specifically. But I will say that, and like we’ve talked about already, I will say, the, the gap is massive. It’s a really big gap in our knowledge on Black and brown autistic experiences or Black and brown neurodivergent experiences. I’m looking at higher ed specifically, but just in general, there’s, there’s a big gap there.

And also just in the last two or three years, there really has been a huge uptick in the study of ableism in general. And so I think a lot of that, research is slow. So I think, I think a lot of it is gonna be coming out for the public over the next five years. We’re gonna see like an uptick in us understanding how ableism impacts the world. We’ve already been seeing it in the past year or two. And it’s gonna expand quite a bit cause a lot of the dissertations in the last two or three years have been, there’s been a lot more work on it in general. And I think that’s also because of folks like me and anyone that’s been late diagnosed, there’s a lot of people who we’re, we’re, we’re there in academia and now we know what, what’s been going on with us for the, for the last you know, 20 or 30 years of our lives. But we’re we’re sitting in the place to be able to do the research now. And those opportunities weren’t provided to disabled folk a generation or two ago, there was no, I, there was no IDEA. There wasn’t the, the expanded stuff from the ADA. Those things weren’t there to allow those folks to be in those positions to do that research.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s really powerful to have disabled and autistic researchers doing research on the topic. It makes a big difference in so many different ways. Absolutely.

Janelle Johnson: For sure.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And so in addition to your therapy work and, and the research you’re doing, you also share a lot about your own lived experience. I found you through LinkedIn. I think I probably found you through one of your most popular posts about masking, where you talked about after discovering that you’re autistic, a situation where you were trying to process how to mask less. And I found that fascinating because as a newly diagnosed autistic person myself, I, I have a hard time wrapping my head around like, what is my masking? Like, who am I? And is this legitimately me or is this something I’m doing for some other reason?

Janelle Johnson: Oh gosh, yes.

Carolyn Kiel: I was so interested in your concept and your process. So yeah, would love to learn more about, you know, maybe sharing a bit about that post or your experience and, and how it’s been going as far as unmasking, what’s it’s been like for you.

Janelle Johnson: For sure. So that post was my, my coming out. Neurodivergent people come out as well. So that was my coming out post. And I shared about the first time that my therapist asked me how masking might be impacting my chronic illnesses. I have a couple of chronic illnesses, and that was the reason that I was in therapy. And and so they had been newly diagnosed and I was trying to wrap my head around what it meant to be disabled in a different way.

I hadn’t, had never explored internalized ableism or anything like that before that point. And so when she asked me about masking, I ended up having a meltdown that day in session. And we had been working together for about four or five months and she had never seen, she had never seen anything like that.

And the reason it was so difficult for me was a lot of what you were saying, it was difficult for me to wrap my head around, you know, what constitutes me and what constitutes masking? Like how do I even begin to tease that apart? Not just for autism reasons, but just trauma reasons as well. I’m a trauma survivor too, and like a lot of autistic people are.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: And so, you know, I, I, I don’t know how to tease apart what’s me and what’s masking. More than that, as a Black professional, what in the world is my life gonna look like if I start telling people that I’m autistic? What is my life gonna be like if I start requesting accommodations? How is that gonna impact my, my business? How is that gonna impact people’s interest in wanting to work with me? Are people gonna treat me differently or, the, the, all the layered parts of, of like what it means to not just be autistic, but to be autistic and Black and a woman. I didn’t think that I could survive that.

But I was having to face these questions because if I didn’t, I had to change something. I had to change how my life was going because my body just gave up. My body was just like, nope, no, we’re not gonna let you. Nope. You’re gonna be, I was mostly in the bed. I was in the bed at least half of the month from 2020 through like mid 2020, the end of 2021. So like almost two years. But I was in the bed all the time, like I couldn’t function and I had to figure out something. I had to change my life if I wanna have any kind of quality of life, if I wanna keep my business, if I wanna, you know, continue to do the work that I want to do. But I couldn’t wrap my head around like what I’m supposed to do with this masking piece.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: It was really difficult. I, I talked about it in the post, how my therapist would try to like bring it up again and I just put up all the walls and we actually didn’t really get to dig into it until a year later.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Janelle Johnson: It took me that long to have enough mental space cuz this was the pandemic as well. So it’s the pandemic and I’m managing learning about these new chronic illnesses after I had long Covid. It was just a lot. George Floyd, I mean, all that was happening. I didn’t have space to think about masking! Like, I can’t do that right now.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: So it took a while and then it did get, I was able to find space to unmask, like find pockets of spaces. I found out that I was masking at home sometimes, and it’s like, why? My husband is the most accepting human ever. He celebrates all of my differences. He married me because he thought that my mind was cool. And so like, he’s, he’s probably neuro, neurodivergent too. I told him on our first date that I thought he was ADHD. And he laughs but now he really believes me. Like I wasn’t just kidding. Like, I really think you’re ADHD . That’s why we get along so well.

But yeah, I decided that it was worth the risk because I deserve to have freedom and other Black and brown neurodivergent people deserve to have freedom. And I’m in the position because I’m a business owner and my business is, you know, my business is five years old. I have employees, we make a decent living. It’s not, you know, huge or anything, but we’re comfortable, right? Like, I have a lot of things in place that, that allow me to take risks that other people can’t. Literally can’t. And why not allow myself to take those risks, so maybe other people will have more chances to do that?

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: Or at least feel comfortable enough to share it in certain spaces like our LinkedIn neurodivergent communities or Facebook communities or wherever. Or bringing it up with their therapist. You know, there are safe places and people, they just need the encouragement from someone else that looks like them doing it to say, Hey, me too.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that’s really important. And yeah, if you’re in a position where you have, at least you feel a reasonable amount of safety to be able to talk freely about your experiences, it absolutely can, you know, inspire and motivate and comfort other people who are in similar situations. Yeah.

And just for listeners, because the term “masking” in this pandemic has multiple meetings, we’re talking about autistic masking. I think most of my listeners are familiar with the term, but just to be clear. So yeah. But that it’s, you know, a form of, of masking your autistic traits and that’s what you’ve been trying to unwind and unmask and just try to be more of your own autistic self.

And you’ve also wrote a LinkedIn post, which was a really interesting exploration of this, relating somewhat to masking, but around the differences you saw between code switching, which so many Black people have to do in certain situations, and neuroswitching, which I don’t know if it’s the same as masking or a related term. Can you tell me more about that? Cuz that was just so fascinating to understand the interplay.

Janelle Johnson: So neuroswitching is not a official term. That is Janelle Johnson coining. If you hear anybody else saying it, they got it from me. And neuroswitching is a term that’s like in other, like in tech. But I found that I needed, I needed language to talk about what it was like to be a Black professional that code switches, but also an autistic professional who does what? Like I had, I needed a word. And that’s where I came up with the word neuroswitching. This, this idea of the compound effects of being Black and autistic and navigating social interactions, it’s not the same. It’s not the same as a white autistic person managing those differences. And it’s not the same as a Black person who’s not autistic managing those challenges. There’s something different happening there because I’m having to navigate not just how you may perceive me as a Black person, but I’m also having to navigate, do I understand the, the, the context? Do I understand what’s being said in the conversation? Do I know when to interject? Do I know the, the joke? Do I get the joke? Like, there’s so many other things that are happening on top of me being a Black person in that space. And so I, I call it neuroswitching. And that’s something that I’m actually looking forward to writing a bit about in the, in the coming months. I brought it up in the lab. The lab thought it was a great idea. So you may see some, some cool writing come up, come about with that term in the next year or two.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m looking forward to reading more about that, cuz yeah, you’re right. It’s not, they’re, they’re not the same thing. It is literally like you’re in a situation and you have to either consciously or subconsciously manage through all of these different scenarios and reactions and probably, you know, your affect. Like, you know, what’s the appropriate amount of “friendly” for this situation? So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s definitely a difficult process.

Janelle Johnson: Mm-hmm. For sure. And not just, and not just like, once you’ve managed one side of it, you have to actually analyze the other part too. And a lot of it is subconscious cause you’ve been doing it all your life.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: But you get to this place where, okay, I know what the joke is. Now how do I interject in a way where they don’t think I’m an angry Black woman? Like you still have to do all the parts. You have to make sure that everything’s nice and buttoned up before you get into the conversation.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: And the stress of that when you’re an autistic Black person is mind boggling. It’s, it’s. Yeah, there’s a lot to it.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well if you write more about that, I’m looking forward to reading about that. Wow. There, there’s definitely a lot behind that.

We’ve talked about your, your therapy work and your research, and you also do consulting with organizations as a trainer and inclusion strategist.

Janelle Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Kiel: So I’m curious about how that part of your business evolved. Was it influenced by your, your experiences, your interests, and, and how did that come about?

Janelle Johnson: So, hmm. I think I’ve always had educator bones.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: So being in an education program now, I’m like, yeah, I probably should have done education a long time ago. But I’ve always had educator bones. I like to tell people what I know. And I like to learn, that it’s not just telling people what I know, but I, I like to learn in return as well.

And so, I found myself creating trainings and programs because people were asking me questions. Mostly therapists at the time. You know, how do you manage the situation with my, my, my Black supervisee who had the situation happen in the therapy room? So I found myself like making trainings and creating programs to help therapists understand the Black experience, the intersection of being Black and, and having a mental health challenge. And also how to interact with one another as colleagues.

And so then George Floyd happened, and he was, you know, he was murdered in, in 2020. And the flood of requests came. People wanting to, to get my thoughts and get my opinions and wanting me to come train their practices and wanting me to you know, just do things. And so, and I said, you know what? Sure, I will do it. I’m already doing a little of it anyway. And so I started creating programs and trainings.

And we ended up creating what’s called Collective Conversation, and it’s this methodology, trademarked methodology to help organizations know how to talk about race, how to talk about disability, how to talk about these challenging topics that, they’re challenging because we didn’t grow up talking about them.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: And, and more than that, we were told not to.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And so now we find ourselves in situations where they have to be talked about. Things are happening in businesses and boardroom and therapy rooms and doctor’s offices. Things are happening in there and there are repercussions to what’s happening in there. And we don’t have any of the skills necessary to communicate well. So that’s what Collective Conversation is about. It’s about teaching leadership teams how to have these conversations, give them the skills that they need so that they’ll shy away from it less because they feel like they’re capable of talking about these things.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah.

Janelle Johnson: But that’s what we kept finding is people were skipping over the how, like how do I talk about race? You know? I know you keep telling me I need to and I should, but how do I do it? Family therapists do really well with teaching people about communication. And so we were like, Hey, let’s teach people how to talk about these really hard topics. And that’s where that came about. And so now we’ve, we’ve done trainings with people all across the, all across the country. And we’ve worked with folks in Texas, in California, Colorado, a couple of places here, in DC. And people reach out and they wanna know how to improve their skillset in intercultural connection. So it’s been really cool.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s great. Yeah. I think you’re right. A lot of people just don’t know how to have that conversation. Because you don’t grow up talking about these things and you may learn what you’re not supposed to say, which is not helpful in a time of crisis when you need to have communication. It’s like, no, how do we, we need to have this conversation. It needs to happen. So.

Janelle Johnson: Yeah, that’s right. So we teach people triple A. And triple A is how to manage a relational rupture. Relational ruptures tend to happen when someone says a racist remark or when someone ignores someone’s request for accessibility. You have these relational ruptures happen in your workplaces and you’re wondering why, why people aren’t getting along and these things are just kind of sitting there. But practicing triple A helps.

Triple A is Acknowledge, Ask, Act. Those are the three steps. And we teach people how to do each of those steps in a way where they can repair those ruptures and start to do the work to transform their organizations.

Carolyn Kiel: And does that work with employees too? So obviously training leadership is critically important because they set the whole, you know, standard and the tone for the entire organization. But I’m thinking, you know, sometimes there are organizations that will say one thing and maybe their leaders are on board, but you know, and I’m thinking of these specifically, maybe like asking for an accommodation. So of course you may have an organization that absolutely supports that, but then maybe an employee asks for something and their manager just like, you know, freaks out or doesn’t get it or doesn’t understand what the law is or what’s allowed. So do you also work with people who aren’t necessarily on the leadership teams to help them through that, that conversation process in a way that respects the whole corporate hierarchy, complicated power structures?

Janelle Johnson: Definitely. We we believe that, there’s certain parts of our program that we encourage the leadership to have everyone they can be a part of. And the, the basic training that we provide is one of those things. Everyone needs to know how to do triple A in order for it to work in your organization. So everyone’s gotta learn how to do it.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm-hmm.

Janelle Johnson: And then there’s other parts that are just for the leadership because as you said earlier, they’re the ones who set the tone. They’re the ones who can change policy.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. That’s powerful for everyone to have those tools, to have those often difficult conversations to help navigate through them. That’s great.

Well, you know, Janelle, you’re doing so much great work in, in this area to help people and companies and, and families to really meet their maximum health and, and cope with a lot of the challenges and stresses in society today. I’m really grateful that you came on the show to talk about all these issues. How can people get in touch with you if they wanna learn more about the type of work that you do?

Janelle Johnson: Sure. So the best way to reach, reach me, actually, is to reach out on our website. Our website is BridgesFLC.com. That’s for Bridges Family Life Center. So BridgesFLC.com. You can go on there, click “let’s connect” and you can reach out there. You can also follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook. I’m The Family Fanatic. So you can follow me there. I haven’t been posting much lately because, you know, being a student is a lot, but I, I usually post a lot when we have breaks, I tend to post a lot more often. But I have tons of great content I’ve been posting for the last five or six years, so especially on my Facebook page, there’s such great content. Videos, you name it, it’s all up there, so be sure to check it out. So, yeah, that’s the best way to reach me.

Carolyn Kiel: Okay, perfect. Yeah, I’ll put those links in the show notes so people can click on them very easily from there. Awesome. Yeah.

As we close out, Janelle, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can help or support you with?

Janelle Johnson: Oh, that’s a great question. I think what I would just encourage everyone to do, and this isn’t necessarily for me, this is for you as a listener, I would encourage everyone to make sure you prioritize rest. It is really hard to prioritize rest in America. We value productivity, which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. There’s been this rush to kind of get over covid. Covid is still happening. And not only that, it was really traumatic for pretty much everybody, and it was a long time. So, and we’re not out of the woods. So I, I just encourage people to, you know, make sure you’re taking good care of yourselves. Get good rest. Build a great support system. You can’t figure out everything by yourself. And make sure you seek, seek out therapy. If you’re in North Carolina, give us a call. We’re happy to help you and your family manage your, your needs for your mental health and your relational health. So reach out to us. We’re happy to help. If you’re across the country or international, feel free to reach out to us for consulting.

Carolyn Kiel: Perfect. Yeah, that’s great advice. Definitely important to prioritize rest. Wonderful. Well thank you so much Janelle, for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Janelle Johnson: Thank you, Carolyn. I’ve had such a great time. I’m like cheesy cause I’m just so excited about how cool this conversation was. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give it a shout out on your social media, or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time!