[Speaker 1] (0:00 – 3:40)
Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we’re talking all things autism and we’re in Covent Garden and it’s a lovely day and we are supporting women’s well-being. Before I go over to my guest Lisa Cromer, I’ll just give you a little bit of update as I always do of what I’ve been up to. So we had our charity football match in Essex.

It was fantastic but it was so hot. I felt so sorry for our footballers and so grateful. It was, apparently it was 45 degrees on the pitch.

They must have been melting because I know I was melting but it was just fantastic. The support that we had, Bowers and Pittsey Community came out to support us. We had an autism hour where parents and families could come along and just have an hour before the crowds came so that they could enjoy the autism reality experience bus that we had there and we had lots of different activities.

So, yeah, so grateful. Thank you to Dawn and Keith, my charity champions and also to Aston, one of my ambassadors who helped coordinate alongside United for Charity, which is Chris. I know he had the headache of putting it all together but it all worked out so thank you so much.

So today, my guest is Lisa Cromer. Now Lisa is a person-centred counsellor who specialises in working with autistic clients. She provides counselling to members of Cheshire Autism Practical Support, of which I’m a patron, and to charity which supports autistic people and their families.

Additionally, she provides autism awareness workshops, training counsellors in how to make counselling more accessible to the client group, increasing counsellor confidence in working with this group which is currently known to be generally low. She has Asperger’s syndrome and has children with Asperger’s and autism. Welcome Lisa.

Thank you. Thanks to be here. Thank you for coming all the way from Cheshire.

How was the journey? It was good. Quite straightforward.

My husband planned it all out for me so I just had to pretty much be handed my tickets and be on my way. Wow, and I understand your husband is looking after the children. He is, yes.

Getting ready for school tomorrow so he’s in charge of all that. How are the summer holidays for you? They’ve been really nice actually.

I’m going to miss them. It’s been nice to have all three, Harry, Hazel and Lewis at home with me without the hassle of the school run. We’ve tried to squeeze in as much as we can.

We went along to a chaps camping event which was really nice. Where was that? The Forge, Wales.

Alright, did you have good weather? It was mild which is good for my kids. My eldest especially doesn’t like the heat.

My Angelo doesn’t, his eczema flares up when the heat’s out so he gets quite stressed. When we had that day when it was 37 degrees I just didn’t know what to do with myself and Angelo was very very stressed so yeah, extreme weathers don’t really suit our children. They absolutely do not, no, there’s no going to Spain for us.

So tell me, who is Lisa? Lisa is a mum first and foremost and a wife and a person fairly recently diagnosed with Jasper in the last four years so that’s been a big part of who Lisa is the last few years discovering who I really am. I’m also a counsellor as you mentioned with a specialism in autism so that takes a lot of my time.

I’m trying to get into a lot of research there. We currently met for the first time at a counselling group didn’t we?

[Speaker 2] (3:41 – 3:41)
Where was that?

[Speaker 1] (3:41 – 7:14)
I can’t remember now. It was Facebook headquarters. How can I forget that?

We were at Facebook headquarters. I was fascinated looking around seeing what it was all about. I know, it was exciting wasn’t it going down to a basement with Facebook.

That was the Creative Counsellors Club. So that was a pretty amazing event to be at, that’s some wonderful speakers there. So yeah I think Joe from Chaps introduced us.

So Joe is head of Chaps and a lovely lady and also on the spectrum and we’ve been friends now for a while. She asked me if I’d be patron of the charity so I said yes you do fantastic work of course so I think it’s been about five years, four or five years now since I’ve been patron. So what difference has it made to your family joining Chaps?

If I kind of talk about before Chaps that probably would kind of say how much difference it’s made. My eldest, we kind of joined Chaps when he was a lot smaller maybe when he was around about seven but between kind of when he was sort of four you start looking around for activities for children to go to, didn’t know he was autistic then. We knew there was something but didn’t know it was autism, thought it was maybe ADHD.

But we were trying things, we were trying to stand at sort of football clubs, rugby clubs, jiu-jitsu swimming and always meeting up against problems and kind of like an unacceptance really. So problems, what do you mean? People being quite judgmental because he wasn’t conforming to what they were supposed to be doing or what you would expect from a child might have been a bit more hyper than the other children and so that we’d encounter quite a lot of judgment for the cause of bit of stress.

Stress and a little fear of going because he just wanted to go and do an activity that he could have fun at but couldn’t conform to all the rules so like playing rugby wouldn’t necessarily be able to follow the rules for the entire match and might be a bit sillier than the other children were. Just we didn’t understand what was going on and obviously coaches weren’t going to know what was going on. So it was just horrible having that judgment a lot of the time not just from coaches but from other parents.

So it made trying to live everyday life where you’re trying to do the right thing for your kids quite stressful, demeaning, we’re disappointing really. And then a friend recommended chaps who run all sorts of activities every month. It’s been growing and growing hasn’t it?

Yeah, since we’ve been there it’s grown massively. So once a month you get your email that says what activities they’ll be running. So we just started to come along to a few things and it was like coming home because we were with a group of people that just got it and if there was some kind of problem nobody was then glaring at you and it just felt like coming home and so he was able to enjoy activities without having to conform to a set of standards and as parents we didn’t felt judged.

So if someone’s listening in and they’re living in the Cheshire area and they feel that their son or daughter might be on the spectrum is there a website that people can have a look at to see where they are and if they can meet up with someone or chat to someone? Yeah, I mean chaps website. Can you remember the, we can share that a bit later on.

Yeah, it would be Cheshire autism practical support. Okay, so if they just type that in on Google it’ll pop off. Yeah, but that would be the one I’d most recommend in the area.

There are a few but they’re the best ones. Do you know how many families they support?

[Speaker 2] (7:15 – 7:16)
Probably hundreds.

[Speaker 1] (7:16 – 13:24)
Hundreds and hundreds. Yeah, I don’t know exactly but yeah hundreds. Yeah, they’ve grown all the time because I’ve watched them on social media and I can see all the different activities and obviously they’ve got a lottery grant as well which was amazing so it’s helping them grow.

I’ve been to the conference where I’ve spoken there and there’s been lots of different speakers. They’ve had stands where if parents don’t know what to do they can go and speak to someone on a stand whether it’s be about how to fill out one of these awful forms you know yeah which is like horrendous. So what interventions have chaps provided that have helped your children?

So you’ve talked about you went to chaps and you felt that they really understood you so what sort of things have they been doing with your… So by the way you’ve got three children so how old are they? Lewis is five, Hazel is seven and Harry is thirteen so quite a wide age gap.

And who’s on the spectrum? As far as you know the boys are both diagnosed. Okay, and did you have to wait a long time for the diagnosis?

For Harry we had to wait six years. Yeah, started kind of knowing something was going on when he was in nursery school. Just the teacher constantly, this has happened, this has happened, this has happened.

And as I said he presented like ADHD so we were on the ADHD pathway but we had to get to the end of that pathway for them to say no it’s not ADHD but it might be autism but we just got kicked off and had to start the process again at the beginning of the autism pathway and that whole process took six years. I’m very interested in the length of time that it takes for children to be diagnosed or even adults and I was speaking recently to someone in the Cornwall area where her son has been on a waiting list for a year so far and really really struggling and she’s just found out he’s 185th on the list. So still got a long way to go, very stressful and obviously it’s frustrating because all of the books that you read about, it talks about early intervention is crucial for our children.

So being 185th on the list does not inspire confidence but I’ve been told in that particular area it’s not, the support there is not that good. It’s postcode lottery isn’t it? Very much so.

So carry on with what about the interventions and chat. So yeah, so probably the one, one of the ones that was most useful was the mindfulness. Okay.

Tanya that runs the creative counselling. Okay, she was running, she was running that four chaps. So mindfulness, it kind of teaches emotional regulation really.

So my son went along for eight sessions and just learned lots of ways to cope with different types of emotion. Okay, could you give an example of one? An example of one, something that he might have learned to help him regulate an emotion appear.

So is there anything that you, because somebody might be listening in and think, right, I want to try that. Yeah, I guess one mindfulness is just being aware of the room. So I could look at that bottle and kind of focus in on what that bottle looks like, kind of the colour of it.

And it kind of, as I’m focusing in on that water bottle, it’s kind of switching my cognitive brain back on away from my spirit of anxiety. Okay, got you. So bring your back to, got you.

Yeah, so that was very helpful to him. Yeah, because sometimes it’s difficult for our children to focus because of their anxieties. And I know sometimes my son says to me, Mom, I feel like my head’s all over the place.

I can’t focus. So we try different things that might help him. And obviously things that have worked throughout the years.

And sometimes as they grow, those things don’t work anymore. So we have to look for something else that’s going to help him relax. So he likes to listen to music.

He likes to listen to stories. He might just like to go for a walk or whatever it is that helps him relax and come back to focusing on whatever the task is at hand. So again, if people are listening in and you live in the Cheshire area and you’re looking for somebody to talk to, they’ve got a helpline.

So please contact Cheshire. So it’s Cheshire Autism Practical Support. So just type it in.

They’re on Facebook. They’re on Twitter and they’re a very, very, very friendly group. And also if you’re listening in, you might like to be a speaker, just contact me on Anna Kennedy Online, which is www.annakennedyonline.com.

Just let me know what you might like to speak about. And we can see if we can arrange for you to come along to Covent Garden. So I just want to say thank you, Lisa.

And we’ll be chatting a little bit more. And we’re supporting women’s well-being. Thank you.

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[Speaker 1] (14:28 – 16:22)
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Join us on Instagram and Twitter at Women’s Radio Station, that’s Women’s Radio STN or Facebook Women’s Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy. We’re talking all things autism.

We’re supporting women’s wellbeing. And my guest today is Lisa Cromer and she’s travelled all the way from Cheshire. Before I go over to Lisa, I just wanted to let you know, I’ve spoken quite often of Autism with Attitude, which is the street dance crew that we have at Hemingdon Man School.

And I’m pleased to say they went to the World Street Dance Championships and only came third. Oh my God, how amazing is that? I was so proud of them.

So last year they came second at the European Championships. And this year in the whole wide world of street dance and the UDO Championships, they came third. I’m so proud of these kids.

I’ve seen how they have progressed in the last five years. They started off at Autism’s Got Talent and talking about Autism’s Got Talent, we’ve got the roadshow on October the 12th. So if you’d like to come along, information is on the website and we’re going to be selling tickets very soon.

So that’s in Ry’s Slip. So doors open at six and the show starts at seven o’clock and Autism with Attitude will be performing and opening the show. I think dance is amazing for children and adults who are autistic.

It just teaches them so many different skills. So it increases flexibility, it helps with their imagination, it helps with social interaction and communication. And it’s just, I think everyone should learn how to dance because I love it.

I love it the way that makes you feel. And obviously these kids are doing amazing. So Lisa, do you dance?

I did do Sousa for a while.

[Speaker 2] (16:22 – 16:23)
Oh, did you?

[Speaker 1] (16:23 – 19:39)
Not for a few years. So yeah, I’m a bit out of practice. Okay, I love dancing.

I think it’s great and I think it keeps you feeling young. It helps you with your posture, everything. Okay, so tell me a little bit more about your family because we spoke about one of your sons and you said six years.

I’ll just say that again. Six years that it took for a diagnosis. I can’t believe that.

And what about your other son? Lewis, he’s five. Where is my eldest is Asperger’s.

My youngest son is more classically autistic. So he’s had a speech delay. He’s had echolalia.

So the difference between the two kind of got the handle on what I was doing with Asperger’s. But then Lewis came along and it kind of threw anything I’d learned completely out of the window. Okay, sounds very much like Patrick and Angelo because they’re both at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

So was he diagnosed quite quickly? No. Well, I kind of knew when he was born.

Okay. I kind of just could tell in his eyes. I don’t know why.

I’m sure there’s probably no real scientific basis to that. More just mother’s intuition. But as he was starting to progress, as he got older, when, you know, the key milestones, kind of knew what to look for more.

So I knew to look out for whether he was pointing and doing the shared attention thing. And I knew to look out for eye contact and that kind of thing. So he didn’t do those things at the ages that he was supposed to do it.

So I kind of knew what to look for. And so kind of, he’s been challenging in different ways. Whereas my other small behavioural, his has been more kind of, Lewis is struggling with communication.

Yeah. Due to their living skills, I suppose. Exactly, yeah.

So him being able to tell us his needs, he hasn’t been able to. So that’s built up the frustration in him. A guessing game.

A guessing game, yeah. That’s been quite hard to not feel sometimes like you can’t really help him. Is communication starting to come through?

Okay, that’s good. He learned to speak quite beautifully through song. So he learned a repertoire of many different songs.

Not Disney. No, not Disney. So many kids I was fortunate to and families that they say their children have learned to speak or learned to sing because of Disney.

So yeah. He’s more YouTube or kind of nursery rhymes. So going on a bear hunt.

Yeah. We used to live going on a bear hunt. So he would be able to communicate.

So if we were driving along trees, he’d be able to communicate that he was seeing trees by singing that part of the going on a bear hunt. So he managed to vary. It was quite ingenious.

He used to be able to communicate just picking out the right verses of different songs. And probably the first kind of two years of his speech was just in song. Yeah, speech and language therapy is so key for our children, but it sometimes can be gold dust to get hold of.

Yes, it was. And the first speech and language therapist just it just wouldn’t work with him. Lewis would not work with this guy.

He just couldn’t engage him. And we were kind of saying, well, try Peppa Pig, but he kind of had his rule book and would only go with the rule book. And we said, look, Lewis responds really well to rhyme and song.

Go with that. So he wasn’t flexible then. Wasn’t flexible.

[Speaker 2] (19:39 – 19:39)
Not good.

[Speaker 1] (19:39 – 23:47)
So yeah, we didn’t really get very far to begin with. Once he went into the school system, things improved and all the people that help him now are really good. Yeah, that’s good to hear.

What about you have a daughter? Have a daughter, Hazel. Yes, she’s seven in the middle.

Yeah, she’s a chatterbox. Yeah, she kind of, where Lewis wasn’t talking, would do all the talking for him. So sometimes it’s like, Hazel, just let Lewis speak a minute.

But oh, she’s one. So how do they get on altogether then? Yeah, the three of them get on quite well.

Hazel usually is pretty good with Lewis. Kind of helps him. Bit of a second mother to Lewis.

Yeah, so we like to have our girly days. We had a good one the other day and we went to Chester Zoo and went to build a bear. And had a bit of girly time together.

So I do like to try and spend that bit of time with her. So you were diagnosed four years ago. Four years ago, yes.

Can I ask why you went for a diagnosis? Why you felt the need? You’re obviously later in life.

Yeah, well, when somebody mentioned the word Asperger’s with regards to Harry, I kind of started to do a lot of research. Our Saspies do like our research. So and I just started seeing traits in the writing that kind of rang true with myself especially as a child and kind of going through adolescence and that kind of thing.

Kind of once I picked, once I found about the female kind of traits and found like a list of typical female traits. So oh my goodness, that’s me. It was just like reading me.

So I kind of, I went for the diagnosis partly for me, but partly for my son too. We got diagnosed in the same year. Oh, did you?

Yeah, and I just, I thought it would be helpful for him to have someone in the family who was kind of his closest person that was like him. And it would help him accept who he was. You know, that I was going to go through the process and kind of go through that acceptance process myself.

Yeah, I guess my role model kicked in. So if someone’s listening in and they’re an adult and they feel they may be on the spectrum, could you guide them on what they need to do? Yeah, I think the number one thing is to do one of the online tests.

So if you were to Google autism tests, you’d come up with a few. And you answer some basic questions and at the very end of it, it scores you. Okay.

I came out with a score of about 32. I’m out of. Well, you have to be over at least 28.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, they used to cut it off.

They used to go, it used to be as low as 28, but they’ve actually put it up to about 30 or 32 now. So I’m kind of, I’m only sort of on the cusp. I know some people will come up a lot higher than that.

Yeah, so how did you feel when you finished the test? That was just kind of the beginning of the process. I probably have a bit of shock.

I probably looked at that test and thought, oh, I’ll do it. And it’ll say, no, you’ll be silly. There’s nothing there but to get it.

And I was like, yeah, you probably are. I was like, wow. Okay.

So you’ve done the test. So what’s the next stage? I went to see my GP.

He told me to go away and write basically a letter of all the reasons why I thought it was. So I did that. And when I actually sat down and started writing, I came up with four pages of A4 on why I thought it was.

I think once you kind of get there, you kind of start seeing it a lot quicker. So once you’ve got that, the GP then has to apply for funding to get you sent to a psychologist that will do the next part. So my in Cheshire East, they had an agreement with a company called Axia.

So yeah, but to go to the next stage, the GP needed funding. So you had to give them enough evidence that you thought you were. Yeah.

So he’s willing to do that because I’ve spoken to some adults where they’ve gone to their GP and then the GP saying, well, well, you’ve got to this stage now. You don’t need to have a diagnosis, but it’s obviously not his decision to me.

[Speaker 2] (23:47 – 23:47)
It’s not.

[Speaker 1] (23:47 – 25:26)
It’s a personal decision. And you know, with regard to your set, your kind of self-acceptance, it can mean an awful lot. It did mean a lot to me.

So then when you get to the psychologist, they send you a questionnaire and they send, if you can, your parents a questionnaire because they want to know what you were like from very young background history. But they can do it without that. So older people out there that parents might not be around.

Yeah, as I said, I’ve shared this before when I spoke to a gentleman, he got a diagnosis and he said, I don’t want to do anything with it. I just want to know. And he said he found out that he was.

So he said he just felt like a big weight had been lifted and then he just carried on with his life as normal. But he just said, I just wanted to know that was it. Yeah, I wanted to know and it kind of explained a lot of sort of problems issues that had growing up and that kind of feeling of difference, but not knowing it was different, just trying to disguise that I was different.

So I did a, you know, I did a pretty good job of that. You know, my masking skills are pretty good. Yeah, but my mental health took a big dent because I wasn’t being who I truly what truly was.

So what do you mean by a dent? What type of things you don’t mind? No, I don’t mind at all.

So by pretending to be somebody else, kind of made me feel kind of ashamed of who I was. Acting, yeah, and kind of, but knowing I was different and hiding that didn’t really do my self esteem any good because I just didn’t want anybody to spot really I was different. Okay, so it’s kind of look quite a lot of energy to not let that happen, not let who I really am be shown.

Okay, and when you told your husband you were diagnosed, how did you react? Well, I was with my husband when I was diagnosed.

[Speaker 2] (25:26 – 25:27)
Did he come along?

[Speaker 1] (25:27 – 25:44)
Well, oh, you mean kind of once I’ve been diagnosed and came home and told him, he just kind of saw me as who I was anyway. Didn’t really matter. I think if I hadn’t have got diagnosed, he wouldn’t have been bothered either way.

Okay, he was going to love me and support me no matter what.

[Speaker 2] (25:44 – 25:44)
Oh, that’s nice.

[Speaker 1] (25:45 – 28:55)
And then did you tell your children? I didn’t tell anybody for the first three weeks, I’d say, and I told, I think I would have told my son, I can’t remember now who got diagnosed first. We were kind of within a couple of months.

I can’t remember if it was me or him. Okay, so within a few months of each year. Okay, so we talk a little bit more about that if that’s okay with you.

So, really interesting chatting to you about that because I always like to find out from people why they felt the need that they had to. Again, if you would like to chat to me, maybe you would like to chat about being diagnosed as a woman or even as a gentleman, even though it’s a women’s radio station, you can come along and chat to me. Please contact me on the charity website.

I’ll just remember you what it is. It’s www.annakennedyonline.com. You can contact me via Twitter, which is at Anna Kennedy One on Facebook, Anna Kennedy Online.

You can contact me on Instagram as well, which is at Anna Kennedy OBE. And again, if you want to contact Cheshire or to some practical support, just Google them and they’ll pop up. Thank you very much.

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[Speaker 1] (29:32 – 40:28)
Women’s Radio Station can give voice to your brand with a wide range of sponsorship opportunities including individual programmes. We can tailor your experience for you. For more information on how you can sponsor a show go to womensradiostation.com Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s wellbeing. Hello this is Anna Kennedy we’re talking all things autism we’re in Covent Garden and my guest today is Lisa Cromer. Before I go over to Lisa I just wanted to remind you of our Autism Hero Awards. If you would like to nominate someone that goes the extra mile please check out our Autism Hero Awards which is www.autismheroawards.com Some of the nominations that you can make for is either Outstanding Education Award the People’s Autism Hero Award the Young Person of the Year Award the Entrepreneurial Award Online Social Network Award Outstanding Community Creative Arts and Media Parent Carer Sibling Leading Business Personal Achievement Award and the last one is the Lifetime Award and the very very last award is something that I choose so we have eight judges so it’s all independent so I’ve got nothing to do with the judging but I choose my own Special Recognition Award and last year it went to Paula McGowan who is an advocate sadly lost her son and she’s advocating for the NHS or even NHS to have mandatory autism training and she’s doing pretty damn well and getting that across so Lisa thank you again for coming along so let me talk to you a little bit about because we were just chatting saying you were diagnosed and then you were also in the middle of doing your counselling degree so how was that for you? So you’re saying that you shared with everybody in the room about being having a diagnosis?

I did yeah the very first kind of high with the I’m Lisa and I’m blah blah blah one of the first things out of my mouth was a night have just been diagnosed as that’s because it was but I wanted to get across to people that I might behave in ways that they might confuse and I didn’t want them to think that I was maybe offish or being rude or being rude and I wanted from the word go for them to be able to ask me questions so if they thought I’d maybe my face sometimes doesn’t have the expressions which they understood and sometimes my face just doesn’t really do that much so you know they might think I was in a bad mood or I was anxious and I wanted to let them know that they could ask me if my face was saying something that maybe I wasn’t intending it to I wanted them to have the option to say oh you know have I offended you and then I could correct and say no no I’m fine you know and it was quite important for me from the very beginning to get across what life was like for me and during the entire course I was open throughout the whole thing about the course as I was going through it and we were learning about ourselves massive part of a person-centered counseling course is learning about yourself so as a counselor as a person said a counselor we bring ourselves in the room so we are our aim is to be very real so we don’t have like a hat that’s a counselor and a hat that’s a mum or a hat that’s a woman or whatever the person that’s in front of you is what we call congruence which basically means to be real so that was really important for me from the word go in the counseling training to be who I really was even though I’d only just discovered who I really was so as part of training as well as learning about myself I was learning about my autistic self which is me yeah so you trained to be a counselor how long does that take three years?

well yeah nearly four okay and then you actually counsel people who are on the spectrum I do is that just specifically that group of people? I can counsel anybody but my kind of desire is to give service to other autistic people because I feel that I can bring something to autistic people did you have to do another element to be able to do that? no that is my life experience that’s doing that it’s very important to me you mentioned Paula McGowan I am 100% behind her and a big part of what I’m trying to do is bring autism training to counseling because at the moment there isn’t any and that just seems wrong to me a lot of the time people that are coming to counseling don’t know they’ve got autism like me I spent 37 years of my life not knowing I was autistic but I’ve gone through several several counselors along that journey and as an autistic person you’re more likely to suffer from anxiety and depressive disorders so someone a counselor is going to have autistic people coming in the room whether they know it or not so for a counselor to be able to spot it I think would be quite useful and to support it 1 million percent useful so what do you feel helps autistic clients that you’re working with with counseling because I mentioned to you we were having a cup of coffee that my son’s tried a few counselors because he doesn’t get instant results it’s just like nah I’m not doing it rubbish I think to be clear from the word go what the counseling means so we kind of do this thing called contracting at the beginning where we kind of explain what we do right being clear about what that is and that there’s not going to be any instant fixes but to say that I’m going to be there with the person as long as that journey takes and kind of give them an environment where they feel that they can explore their issues and problems the environment is key if you don’t have the training in the autism you might not be aware that the lights are too bright or that the person is so busy trying to keep their mask on that they look fine when they’re not fine so it’s little things like offering a cup of tea or giving permission not to give eye contact is hugely important or just saying look if there’s anything here that’s bothering you please tell me so do you set the room up in a specific way that you feel that men or women who are on the spectrum would feel comfortable? I try my best but I think the key is to ask them if there’s anything in the room that’s bothering them even if there’s something about what I’m wearing that’s bothering them so I won’t wear strong perfumes for example and I won’t wear a top that’s too fussy that’s the kind of thing where if we try and ignore if we try not to have training in autism we’re not being told that that could be an issue okay so say for example obviously you said you’ve been to and this is me just thinking out the top of my head that you’ve been to counsellors before you knew you were autistic so you were seeing a counsellor they didn’t know you were autistic you didn’t know you were autistic what didn’t work in that counselling session for you?

Kind of the expectation to be able to talk through the process of getting diagnosed I come across something called alexithymia that’s a Greek word that means no words for feelings so when I’m trying to talk about something that’s really deep and troublesome to me I can’t really find words to describe what it is I might be able to describe how it feels so kind of oh well that feels like a horrible burning in the pit of my stomach but so before I knew I was autistic obviously I was being expected to come up with that and not being able to find words to describe the feeling so I kind of had an experience where a counsellor said these are NHS sessions they’re going to run out in six weeks I just felt I was wrong and I got so much wrong in life and I just felt well I’m getting counselling wrong now as well I can’t even do counselling right but it wasn’t that it’s just I needed a tool I needed something else to help me get there so after the diagnosis like moving on a few years found a counsellor that knew about autism and so she had some visual tools that could help me so she had a kind of jar of buttons that I’d feeling words for none of them we did kind of a timeline and at every point of significance in my life stop look at the words on these buttons and pick them up and I had 20 words just because they were there then without that anxiety stopping me being able to find these words really helped and then I really did identify with the problem so I’ve been through three counsellors before that and talked about this stuff we call it narrative in counselling terms but it’s telling the story you can tell a story and not really do anything or help you or if you can attach to the feelings when you’re telling the story that’s more therapeutic it’s all very complex stuff isn’t it? Hopefully I’m not confusing too much no no because I obviously again I’ve spoken to some people where they’ve gone to see a counsellor and they expect to be fixed and I think you need to make that clear you probably do that this is not a fixing session I can’t fix you no so how do you get that across to them? We kind of explain I explain that counselling is about helping somebody find fixes to their own issues and problems and if they can’t find fixes coming to a place of acceptance of their problems so it’s about getting across that actually it comes from you it doesn’t come from me I can provide you with the environment and if I can help you to communicate using the tools that I have and communicating a style which suits you I can help you get to that stuff okay so if people are interested and they might like to chat to you and they might like to book a session with you where can they find you? so I counsel members of CHAPS okay so that’s in Cheshire so in Cheshire so if you were to just look up the website Cheshire autism practical support if you go via my website lisachromar.com how do you spell that?

l-i-s-a-dot-c-r-o-m-a-r-dot-com is that your website? that’s my website yes so any blogs or anything like that? I’ve written some articles I’ve been blogs on a blog on somebody else’s website the creative counselors website have just published one of my pieces of work okay so if people look on the creative counseling website is that open to the public?

I think the website is yes so they probably should be able to see one of your articles and read or I’ve got a linkedin profile okay would you like me to read that out? yeah if you don’t mind hang on one second I’ve got it right here yeah not a linkedin sorry academia yeah sorry rustling paper I was told not to do that

[Speaker 2] (40:29 – 40:31)
don’t worry about it it’s necessary

[Speaker 1] (40:32 – 41:57)
okay so if you go on Darby d-e-r-b-y-dot-academia a-c-a-d-e-m-i-a-dot-e-d-u forward slash Lisa Cromar and anything I have published goes on there okay so what Lisa’s going to also be doing is writing an article for me which will be put on the charity website so she will put that link in the article won’t you Lisa?

I will absolutely and we’ll be able to share that so you can pick it up from there and yeah and do you have an Instagram account or which is the best way of contacting you via social media? Probably Twitter okay and what’s your Twitter handle? It is don’t just say that it’s twitter.com forward slash Cromar Lisa okay so if you just type in at Cromar Lisa yeah so C-R-O-M-A-R just to remind you again and if you want to see what we’re up to on social media myself you can either check me out on Twitter again at Anna Kennedy One at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram and Anna Kennedy Online on Facebook or you can check out various other presenters on the Women’s Radio Station please check out www.womensradiostation.com thank you very much Welcome to Women’s Radio Station I’m Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons Live

[Speaker 2] (41:57 – 41:58)
on Women’s Radio Station

[Speaker 1] (41:58 – 43:19)
Hello and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamante on Women’s Radio Station Hello and welcome to Julene is listening Hi this is Anna Kennedy and we’re at Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s well-being and we’re talking all things autism Women the possibilities are endless that’s what makes us different Hi I’m Lauren Mishcon I’m a birth doula and mum of three and I’m passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experiences please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy here on Women’s Radio Station Every week I’ll be here with an expert guest talking about women’s reproductive health everything fertility, pregnancy, birth and baby related right through to the menopause and beyond please join us for an informative and fun hour Hello my name is Ingrid Marsh on Women’s Radio Station and coming soon is the radical well-being show to help support women’s well-being each show I share the airwaves all know women like me and you doing extraordinary things women who overcome huge obstacles in their lives who are now here with me to empower you on radical well-being show you’ll be inspired to kick away the roadblocks and live your life to the fullest if you’re ready to get radical about your well-being then this is the show for you

[Speaker 2] (43:21 – 44:15)
Hi I’m Hazel Butfield a blogger, book lover and mental health advocate and you can listen to my show Get Booked here at Women’s Radio Station daily at 5am and 5pm throughout my shows we’ll talk about the books I’ve read new releases, chat to authors, publishers and book enthusiasts all with a theme and aim of supporting women’s emotional well-being if you have a book to tell us about get in touch at presenters at womensradiostation.com join me on my show and share my love of books and writing Hi I’m Valentina Barbacci and I’m the executive director of Media Matters for Women we’re a registered charity operating in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo and we produce and share podcasts via Bluetooth and mobile phones focusing specifically on women and girls excluded from information due to extreme poverty we empower those living in rural areas with media that transforms how they access, own and share information

[Speaker 1] (44:15 – 54:37)
to find out more and be part of this movement come check out our website at mediamattersforwomen.org You’re listening to Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s well-being Women’s Radio Station is creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved join us on Instagram and Twitter at Women’s Radio Station that’s Women’s Radio STN or Facebook Women’s Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes Hello this is Anna Kennedy we’re talking all things autism we’re live we’re in the last quarter with my lovely lady Lisa Cromer Before I go to Lisa I’ve got the telephone number of Cheshire Autism Practical Support which is 034-850-8607 I’m very proud to be a patron What can chaps do for me? So they support families with autism spectrum conditions or Asperger’s Syndrome whether diagnosed or not living in Cheshire their ethos is working proactively and positively to achieve their aims to improve autism awareness increase independence skills and use early intervention techniques to improve outcomes for children For parents we produce a monthly newsletter which is very interesting that is sent out to all the members so if you become a member you’ll get a copy of the newsletter with current news articles signposting and reference material at the diary of events lots of events going on with Cheshire autism practical support and everything that they’re doing to follow the month Lisa we’re on our last quarter so how are you contributing to counsellor awareness in regard to autism? That’s a big job for you So I kind of thought yes I can be a person a person that’s a counsellor for autism and try and be like an individual or I can take what I’ve learned from that and share it in a wider field because a lot of the evidence is kind of showing that a lot of people with autism are not happy when they’re going to counselling and they’re feeling like they’re not really being understood in counselling so I feel…

You made them feel worse? Yeah well like I said before I just felt like that was just something else I was getting wrong and I don’t really think that’s fair and as we know from the statistics depression, anxiety are a lot more common in people with autism probably because the society we’re trying to live in and through very scary statistics around suicides a female is three times more likely than an autistic female is three times more likely than a neurotypical woman to take their own lives and that’s just not right so it’s really important to me to get the message out there so I give workshops to other counsellors Oh okay so what kind of workshops? So I kind of take myself as a big part of me goes in there and kind of say what helped me in counselling and how I’m doing counselling I have a lot of visuals in there so some videos on what it’s like to have like sensory processing disorder kind of audio of someone experiencing that and I play it really loudly and I sort of kind of say can you concentrate when that was happening well that’s how we live every day so I kind of give a lived experience of autism from personal and showing and then I ask well what could you do differently knowing all of that in the counselling room how could you help with that and again that comes down to make sure there’s no ticking clocks and that kind of thing and communication is different often in autism so how can we adapt our communication style to help someone with autism so that’s about using visual tools or I mentioned the buttons that’s that kind of stuff bringing that into the counselling room to aid people So do you have like a bag of tricks? I do have a bag of tricks Yes tell me what’s in your bag of tricks Okay so a big part of counselling is forming psychological contact so that’s about say you and I were in this room and we weren’t on the radio and we were counselling we’d have to make sure there’s some connection between us so a big part of counselling being useful and working is that you’ve got that connection so and you can’t form that if you’re anxious overly anxious so it might even be down to having a game of Jenga okay and I’ve got kind of prompts that are on the Jenga pieces like who would you not want to be in a lift with right so that kind of gets the brain thinking but not only that it takes the pressure off verbalization so usually in counselling we’ll sit back a little bit and kind of wait for the person to bring what they need to bring and there’s a lot of like emphasis on the client bringing what needs to be set up but I find with autistic clients if you just sat there like that and waited for them to do that would be just quite painful for them at times so I kind of like to introduce them that will relax and it’s not necessarily waiting for them to do all the work and so the Jenga pieces and there’s a bit of kind of to and fro conversation and then you start to build a connection then you start to build a relationship you can’t do counselling without a relationship no I’d imagine not so that is our primary goal is to get the relationship in place so the person trusts us enough to be able to share their most intimate details with us you know you’ve got to you’ve got to be so vulnerable in counselling and you can’t really do that if you’ve not formed that psychological contact if you’ve not formed that relationship so how long is the session? 50 minutes 50 minutes which sometimes probably isn’t long enough but it’s kind of counselling that’s been built like that you get to a stage where like you get into the 50 minutes and they’ve just opened up yes and then you’ve got to say time’s up yeah yeah so that must be frustrating it is I mean I’m you know I’m a little bit flexible on that you know if so if so depending on I do I try and leave a little bit of a bigger gap I mean if you’re working say in a school as a school counselor you haven’t really got much control over that you’ve got 10 minutes you’re saying the next person you’ve got to be pretty okay but if someone’s really getting into something and they’ve taken a while to get there obviously verbalisation could be a problem and you’ve just got them in the flow it would be quite cruel to say right no it’s 50 minutes to cut you off now have you ever had anyone who sat there and said not a sausage not a word that can happen does that feel awkward? that’s why I have the creative tools in the room I’ll always have a set of various tools in the room whether that’s kind of some journaling type stuff so we might have a journal I’ve got a jar like a lucky dip and you’ll go in and pick a random question out or some people prefer to see they’re actually being controlled so they might pick a question and then we might use some paper and pens just to kind of draw that but what I find with I mentioned the Jenga set and the journaling even if the prompt is there usually what they go on to talk about has absolutely nothing to do with what the prompt is now that is more like traditional counselling yeah a lot of the time someone will kind of start with something but what really needs to be spoken about will always come out you just have to give the environment and the tools for that to be allowed to come out so that’s all really what the tools do okay it kind of just gets them to a stage where they can access the counselling okay yeah that’s great that’s interesting so obviously people come to you for counselling without obviously giving anything away so what sort of things that they come to you with problems or anxieties so if I give an example of why I might have gone to counselling so you might want to explore growing up with your parents or kind of the poor relationships you’ve had or that you might be going through a difficult time with a friend at that time and want to explore what’s going on there a lot of people will come with kind of feeling quite low self-esteem in counselling terms we call this kind of conditions of worth so this is I can only be loved if I behave in a certain way but you might be behaving in a way that really isn’t the true you so it’s about kind of learning how to accept yourself without feeling the need to please everybody all of the time but that takes quite a bit of courage I think probably a lot of people come to you as well is that it’s a big thing for them is trust because they’ve been let down so many times in the past especially at school or with friends because I know that when children come to our school trust is a big thing and that’s the first thing you’ve got to you’re just not going to get into a headspace of learning if they don’t trust you absolutely so that’s a big thing yeah I mean I had before the diagnosis I had a you know a lot of problems with kind of understanding why people might lie for example that’s very much tied into my autism and why as an autistic person that might have needed more examination you know someone might say a white lie which actually is devastating so you know it’s even something as simple as that that is what I would have been exploring in the therapy room or somebody in my my most recent counseling I’d been quite poorly and I really I felt quite traumatized by it so that was exploring my feelings around that lack of control in hospital and that fear of the illness being quite bad and yeah that that’s what kind of I explored then but yeah absolutely times where you’ve had your trust broken is going to appear in the therapy room so this radio station is all about women and well-being so what do you do to relax what do you do to make yourself well what recharges your batteries I just wanted to mention just be on the just before yeah go on then the other thing I’m doing okay is I host a neurodiversity for counselors Facebook page with three other three other counselors the lovely ladies we are spreading the word we’ve got over 400 members now okay so we’re kind of if someone’s looking for you where do they find you it would be counselors working with neurodiversity so if you’re a counselor it’s only for counselors counselors only yeah but it’s making sure that there are as many counselors as possible being educated on in autism as many clients can be helped as possible so let’s go back

[Speaker 2] (54:37 – 54:39)
to what you do to relax

[Speaker 1] (54:39 – 54:40)
that’s absolutely fine

[Speaker 2] (54:40 – 54:42)
come on relaxation I want to hear what you do

[Speaker 1] (54:42 – 54:53)
I’m a little bit of an EastEnders fan oh yeah I am isn’t that depressing well it kind of helps my brain to switch off so rubbish tell you

[Speaker 2] (54:53 – 54:54)
rubbish TV

[Speaker 1] (54:55 – 55:03)
I also watch the same programs over and over again so I kind of watch Fraser on repeat I watch the same phrases over and over again oh do you

[Speaker 2] (55:03 – 55:04)
yeah

[Speaker 1] (55:04 – 58:40)
a bit like my son with lots of other programs and my youngest son Angela they like to watch I think sometimes they watch it as well to make sure that it remains the same yeah all the certain bits that get them excited I remember when they were younger there was a piece on Parsley the Lion where the lion exploded for some reason and I could hear it because when you had recorders then VHS it was like rewind fast forward the exact same bit and they’d hit the spot right on I thought how can they do that every time it’s on the same spot rewind fast forward I thought how many times can they watch it but obviously they got great enjoyment out of it and who am I to say that they can’t you know whatever rocks your boat that’s what relaxes you that’s fantastic for me as you know it’s dance I love my dancing and I’m glad that Zumba’s back on on Thursday I’ve missed it because it’s been off for a whole month so I am raring to go on Thursday it’s been so lovely talking to you and I’ve learnt so much about counselling and obviously we’ve seen each other on Facebook and social media and I met you for the first time at the Councillors Club it was great so it’s great to chat to you and spend a little bit more time and hear your story and I’d just like to say thank you so much so again if people want to find your website what is it again? lisacrima.com so spelled c-r-o-m-a-r dot com and again if you’d like to be one of my speakers on All Things Autism please contact me on the charity website which is www.annakennedyonline.com or you can contact me for your social media at Anna Kennedy One on Twitter which I’m updating every day of any news that I find or what I’m doing Anna Kennedy online on Facebook and on Instagram it’s at Anna Kennedy OBE so don’t remember so don’t forget Autism Hero Awards nominate someone that you feel that go the extra mile www.autismheroawards.com thanks everyone and goodbye Welcome to the Women’s Radio Station Supporting Women’s Wellbeing Women’s Radio Station is all about diversity from opinions career ethnicity education and most importantly women’s well-being we aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere providing opportunities and the platform for your voice visit our website womensradiosation.com for more information I’m Tamina Zaman founder of Empower and Enrich when it comes to money do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone many women want to be smarter with their cash but just don’t know where to start at empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy affordable way get in touch with me at empowerandenrich.org and let’s change your future together Hello my name is Natasha Ann Callaha welcome to you lovely lady listeners of your very own Women’s Radio Station Over the coming months I’ll be doing a survey and big brand coffee shops interviewing customers asking why they like to drink coffee and if they would like to give us a health tip for our listeners the most shared and liked post will be the winner of a prize stay tuned for further details Hi I’m Carolyn Van Biers please join me for a brand new show here on Women’s Radio Station it’s Mother’s Hour if like me you’re a mum juggling far too many balls and dropping most of them this is definitely the show for you

[Speaker 2] (58:40 – 59:24)
we’ll examine the highs and lows of motherhood and make sure you laugh out loud as we take on this challenging role together with spoonfuls of advice incredible stories it will be refreshing honest and funny look at being a mum Are you struggling with money? Turn to us as a national charity helping people struggling to make ends meet job loss illness or bereavement can cause a real financial crisis we give practical help to get people back on track whether you’re thinking of having a baby trying to get out of an unhappy relationship or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to we can help visit turntotus.org.uk

[Speaker 1] (59:27 – 59:52)
Welcome to the Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s wellbeing Women’s Radio Station can give voice to your brand with a wide range of sponsorship opportunities including individual programmes we can tailor your experience for you For more information on how you can sponsor a show go to womensradiostation.com Women’s Radio Station supporting women’s wellbeing