Embracing Neurodiversity with Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Ginty and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones, when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

Jen (01:09)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Today's guest, Lila Low-Beinhart is the founder of Divergent Paths Counseling, a practice created to honor neurodivergent minds and focus on healing trauma rather than fixing people. As a late diagnosed neurodivergent individual and former chemist, Lila brings a powerful blend of scientific insight, mindfulness, and over a decade of teaching experience to her work.

as a psychotherapist and educator. Her mission challenges the traditional mental health system and our culture's obsession with productivity, offering a transformative reframe of what true neurodiversity affirming care looks like. Welcome, Lila.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (01:54)
Thank you for having me.

Jen (01:55)
Yes, yes, I'm so excited for our conversation. Let's get into it. What is your origin story?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (02:03)
Yeah, so I am someone who grew up in New York City. And I went to a school with no grades and with a bunch of other turns out people like me who were neurodivergent. So I didn't know that at the time. ⁓ And what happened is I got this really amazing place to grow and thrive. But when I moved to Colorado, where I am now,

I realized that I was different than a lot of people. And that's when I got my autism diagnosis. ⁓ And that's when I realized like, there are these ways that I'm different than most people out there. And it's really important for me to own those and honor those so that I can figure out how to really thrive and make an impact in the world. So that's to start.

Jen (03:01)
Wow, tell us more about this ⁓ school that you went to in New York City.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (03:07)
Yeah, it was founded by this, you know, pretty left-wing progressive guy, I think in the 70s. And ⁓ this is before I got there. But in the 80s, at least, apparently, there was like a smoking lounge where the students and the teachers could smoke weed together. You know, at least that's the rumor. I don't know how true it is. But I love that little nugget of history. ⁓

Jen (03:34)
Yes!

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (03:37)
And yeah, I started going there in kindergarten and their whole philosophy was like, let's foster a love of education. Let's foster a love of learning, really, not education learning. ⁓ And that's totally influenced who I am because I later also realized I have some demand-avoidant traits. And I believe if I'd gotten grades or been in more of a stereotypical school, I probably would have rebelled way sooner than I did in ninth grade when I did stop doing homework for a whole year. ⁓

⁓ But instead of getting failing grades, I just had weekly meetings with the principal that were like five minutes long and she was just like, how you doing? All right, great. See you next week. And that was it. And then I got back into my love of learning because of that like gentleness and care and compassion that was offered to me.

Jen (04:26)
So you're in this beautiful setting of a specialized school and then you end up going to Colorado and starting high school in a neurotypical setting.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (04:39)
Actually, no, I went to high school, same place, thank goodness. I went to college out in the East Coast too. ⁓ But I moved out here. I was a chemist for about four years, pharmaceutical chemist at Merck, which great experience, also surrounded by lot of neurodivergent people. ⁓ And then after that, I moved to Buddhist retreat center. I lived there for...

Jen (04:40)
We're okay.

good, good, good.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (05:04)
⁓ over a year, like meditating, coordinating retreats, teaching. And after that, I went to grad school in Colorado at Naropa University, ⁓ which, you know, I wouldn't have gone anywhere else. like the foundation of how I practice. ⁓ And, and in this transition out to Colorado to the Buddhist Retreat Center, to living in Boulder, there was definitely an experience of, I'm

I'm different, like I'm trying to communicate here and it's not going as well as it used to go when I was at my high school or working as a chemist. I just feel like we're kind of talking a bit past each other and I'm not feeling seen, I'm not feeling very interested. Other people don't seem to get me or feel as interested in what I have to say. Yeah, that's when I...

started going to therapy and the therapist was like, I wonder if you're autistic. And I was like, I think I am. I've been wondering for like over five years, but the literature on women and autism just didn't exist when I was a teenager. So I didn't see myself as autistic until the literature got really updated and people realized the stereotypes about autism were, you know, stereotypes.

Jen (06:29)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of people do not completely understand what neurodivergent means. Could we talk a little bit about that?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (06:38)
Yeah,

totally. Yeah. So it was a word coined in the 90s by the autism community, which was primarily online at the time Australia, ⁓ and Europe mostly, at least in English speaking world. And it was coined to just basically mean anyone whose body mind ⁓ functions differently than what society considers normal.

And so normal doesn't really exist. There's no such thing. But the closer you are to what society considers normal, the more neurotypical privilege you get. And so this was a term meant to help people understand, like, I am different. I'm farther away from normal. I'm over here. And so that needs an understanding, needs a name, that needs a community, that needs a place for me to go.

be understood. And so as it was originally defined, was really any like mental health differences, neurodevelopmental differences, IQ differences, ⁓ like meditation or taking psychedelics, it's really broad in its original foundation. So I really like the term sensory neurodivergent to describe those of us who have sensory differences. So that's autism and ADHD, and then highly sensitive.

gifted folks and people with sensory processing differences. Those of us are the ones under the sensory neurodivergent bucket, what most people call neurodivergent now.

Jen (08:15)
Yeah, yeah. And I believe that a lot of people, when they do hear that, they only think of autism, but it's not just autism. It is, like you said, ADHD. You can actually become neurodivergent. Myself, with complex PTSD, I am considered neurodivergent. So it is not just a very specific group of people. There's so many different differences.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (08:35)
Thank

Jen (08:44)
in our world that can be considered neurodiverse.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (08:50)
Yeah, exactly. it's, it's, love the bigger framing of it, because it's a way for us to acknowledge this, this realm of privilege and oppression that isn't often acknowledged, racism is being understood and worked on as a power dynamic, gender has been in the discourse for a long time, but we really need to see, along with those, along with class, like differences in mind body as a really key component of what

define someone's inner and outer experience.

Jen (09:26)
And just thinking on this, my son, when he was four, he was given an Asperger's diagnosis. This was before they took it out of the DSM, And it was very interesting to then try to get him schooling. ⁓ We wanted him to be in public school so that he could get the needs met that he had. ⁓ But there was so much pushback.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (09:36)
Yeah.

Jen (09:53)
because he had an autism diagnosis, they wanted to put him in a class that was not with neurotypical children. And it was very, and when I went to visit that class, I knew right away that that could not be where my son could go because, and you could speak further on this, children who are autistic need to be in with neurotypical so that they can learn, but just in a different way.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (10:24)
But I love to say it, it's just like every human being is different. We live in a society that wants to say like, this is the way we do it. If you do it this way, everything's going to be okay. But everyone's different, everyone's unique. And so for a lot of autistic kids, yes, they want to need to be in a classroom with neurotypical peers where they get to learn, like there's multiple reasons there. There's the socializing reasons, like, okay, like.

let's you don't need to just have neurodivergent friends. Some people, some neurodivergent people really like just having sensory neurodivergent friends. That's great. Some sensory neurodivergent people want to have a range of neurodivergent friends. That's great. So that's something to take into consideration. And then there's this myth that, ⁓ you know, verbal ability or ⁓ behavioral, like ways of regulating are related to intelligence, which they're just not related.

⁓ at all. In fact, if anything, there's evidence showing that, ⁓ higher intelligence is linked to autism. ⁓ and those of you are thinking, well, what about, you know, nonverbal autistic people? ⁓ there's a lot of non-speaking autistic people that are, are once they learn how to communicate with letter boards or assistive devices are saying, I'm in here. Like I can't communicate with my mouth.

Jen (11:24)
No.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (11:51)
but I am a human being right in here and I wanna be learning and you put me in these classes that taught me like I was five when I'm 13 and it's not okay. That's really, I mean, imagine if you were being taught as a five-year-old when you were in high school, you would have been bored out of your mind. You would have probably acted out, right? So these are really, it's really important to not link like.

Jen (12:11)
Mm.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (12:20)
neurotypical expectations of behavior and communication with intelligence or desires of that person for what they want in a classroom or in a work environment.

Jen (12:32)
Thank you so much for describing that so that we can better understand. Because when I had my son's diagnosis given to me, I went and I searched everything. Now, this is ⁓ probably 15 years ago. So things were very different from when they are now. And I am so excited to see how things have changed throughout the years.

what are some of the noticeable differences that you see?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (13:02)
Yeah, I mean, the biggest one, like I mentioned before, is that people are moving beyond the stereotypical definition of what autism is. They're expanding it beyond like white, middle class, cis, boys and men, towards women and gender minorities and BIPOC people. And people who maybe have certain autistic traits that are stronger than other autistic traits. ⁓ Highly sensitive autistic people.

These are all really important to get people the diagnosis that helps them understand and normalize their experience of being different so that they can say, I'm different, not wrong. That's one of the biggest, biggest things I see.

Jen (13:44)
Absolutely.

Yeah,

and it's so important and I celebrate when I see that this is taken less as a disorder and more as just a difference. It's beautiful.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (14:02)
Yeah.

It is it's really beautiful. Yeah, yeah. And a difference that unfortunately can be pathologized and the rates of PTSD in autistic people is anywhere in the range of 30 to 70 something percent. But I would say every autistic person who comes into my office, and including myself, we all have complex trauma from the ableism and internalized ableism that we faced ⁓ our entire lives from

when we were an infant and things were, we had sensory sensitivities, but people didn't know that. And so we were maybe forced to be in a situation that was really overwhelming to our nervous system. So trauma can start like right in that moment and go all the way from bullying to your needs being invalidated, to not having the correct classroom, to yeah, being told you're bad explicitly or implicitly at socializing and

So the trauma, when we have a lot of trauma, and that can manifest as behavior differences or behaviors that can harm ourselves or other people, ⁓ like hitting your head or cutting yourself or having suicidal thoughts or plans or hitting other people or yelling at other people, because you're just trying to communicate how uncomfortable you are on the inside. And I think it's really important to differentiate between like,

neurodivergence, like autism and ADHD, and how those are just different wiring that we're born with, and then the PTSD that often results from being different in a capital capitalist society that values normal, putting that in air quotes, ⁓ and how then that leads to trauma and the behavioral differences that might come just from the trauma.

Jen (15:53)
Yes, yes. Now, let's talk about when your therapist said, huh, I wonder, right? I wonder if this is something we should really press into. And that happened with my son as well. He had so many behavioral issues, brought him to a therapist and she saw that he drew a cat, but all the parts were in different places. He wasn't like a together cat. And so she's like, hmm.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (16:17)
It was the

Jen (16:20)
and sent us to a neuropsychologist to get tested. Is that the same kind of process that you went through?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (16:30)
Yeah, I went through the same process. I was in my mid 20s at the time. I started wondering if I was autistic when I was 19. But like I said, I couldn't find anything on the internet about women and autism. so I just I didn't fit the stereotypical description. So I dropped it. And then I'm 25. I'm living at this retreat center. I'm like, wow, I've just moved to Colorado. I feel so different. And she's like, I wonder if you're autistic.

And I just like instantly clicked when she said that. I was like, yes, I'm pretty sure I am. But let me go learn some more, research some more, then, yeah, set up an assessment. And luckily, there are some good neurodiversity affirming assessors in the Denver metro area. And I found one. And they specialize in supporting women and understanding if they were autistic. And it was very, very clear that I was autistic. Yeah.

Jen (17:24)
And that must have just given you relief, right?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (17:28)
It did. It was, it was really a completely life changing moment for me. There's like a distinct before and after period from that diagnosis, where before it was what's wrong with me? Why is it so hard for me to make friends? Why do I feel like I just collapse on the floor when I get home after work most days? Why?

Why do I have so much just dissociation and anxiety? Like, what is going on with me? And that message is reinforced. I've been going to therapy since I was 14. So that had been 10 years at that point. But without knowing I was autistic, you know, a lot of the interventions the therapist did just really did not help me. They did not know how to help me. They tried. They had the best intentions, but it didn't help.

didn't help and so when I got that diagnosis it was like I could like turn around and like look back on my whole life up to that point and just be like ⁓ I wasn't a bad therapy client I'm not bad at socializing I'm autistic

And I like to talk about special interests and I like, I'm deeply feeling and I have meltdowns and shutdowns. And when I get home and I'm overwhelmed, that's a shutdown. That's not me like going into some sort of catatonic depression. I just need a few hours with my cats to cuddle and like nice soft blanket and then I'll feel better in a few hours. And let's now I know how to not go there. It was just, totally changed my life.

Jen (18:47)
Yes!

And how did you breach that with those that you were working with?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (19:16)
Yeah. Well, luckily at the time I was just a volunteer. I mean, I say just a volunteer, but I was living at a Buddha center and working about 15 hours a week and then coordinating a lot of retreats and meditating a lot. And so I didn't have to break it. I didn't tell anyone in that location. didn't feel like a space I needed to share it. And then I went to grad school and that's when it got a little more difficult because, yeah.

Again, in New York City, like, I felt really valued for being unique and being different ⁓ and having like my own way of seeing things. But when I got to Naropa and to Colorado, I did feel like my uniqueness and I'm, I was told that, that this intersection between being a woman and then being autistic and having a blunter way of communicating, people would get triggered by me. I mean, I had people yell at me.

When I'd ask for certain needs and accommodations being met, people would be like, how dare you ask for that? That's not okay. So I definitely faced some pushback in that environment, which was really hard at the time. ⁓ But it's also made me stronger and care a lot less what people think, which has been really good for my mental health.

Jen (20:40)
Yes, indeed.

With my age, I have started to feel that way too. Hey, I'm working on my mental health and your problems with that mean nothing to me.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (20:53)
Mm-hmm. I've learned to just care about the people who I care about and what they think about me and kind of drop what other people think.

Jen (21:03)
Yes, I can see that even after how long it's been since my son received his diagnosis, that there is still pushback in the workplace of why do we need to make you quote special, but it's not being special. It's just touching on again, differences.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (21:24)
Yeah, 100 % yeah, I'm giving a talk this week to a huge ⁓ workplace, 4,000 people ⁓ about how to create a neurodiversity farming workplace. this is the thing. This is why I like seeing it as a spectrum of neurodivergence because no one is normal. Everyone has some traits that are considered

different from normal. And someone who has gotten an autism diagnosis is more over here. And they might have more traits that need more accommodation in workplace. But the only reason they need accommodation is because it's a mismatch between the context and the person's traits. There's nothing inherently wrong with the person. Our market-based capitalist system has routine working hours,

rigid social hierarchy. Things like looking around or moving are considered rude or like you're not paying attention. ⁓ There's a lot of really sensorily overwhelming workplaces. So I will say, for example, when I worked as a chemist, I had either my own office or I shared it with one other person. So that was my own sensory

environment that I got to set up and keep the lights off all the time and wear noise cancelling headphones if I really had to. I got to work in the lab by myself, usually once a week for like a seven hour stretch where I didn't have to interact with anyone. In fact, the norm was do not interact with Lila right now because she's doing something really important. And so I got to have this balance of alone time, low sensory with, you know, the necessary interactions with people. But that kept me sane. That was an environment.

that matched my traits, the context and my traits matched. So there's no problem there, but a lot of contexts do not match people's traits. And that's when you need to look into what's called like accommodations. You're just accommodating, let's get this person in their own room, or let's get this person noise canceling headphones, or let's teach people when this person is looking out the window, that actually means they're paying more attention than if they're looking at you, because they have to spend all that energy looking at you. So it's that mismatch, mismatch between the context and the traits of the person that

cause the quote dysfunction, not something inherent to the person.

Jen (23:50)
Yes, and what many people consider demands are just accommodations.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (23:57)
Yeah, exactly. It's so interesting because when someone comes to you with an accommodation, what they're saying is, I will be more productive if you help me with this thing over here. And then for some reason, a lot of managers are like, no, I will not help you be more productive, which just goes against what they're there to do. So it's a very unhelpful thing for the organization to not meet someone's, again, quote, reasonable accommodations, you know, within, you know, within a set of boundaries. That makes sense. You don't want to

Jen (24:06)
Yes.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (24:27)
know, go way beyond what your organization can do, but there's a lot you can do that's pretty easy to set up.

Jen (24:35)
Yes. Well, tell us more about why you founded Divergent Paths Counseling.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (24:42)
Yeah. So when I graduated from my clinical mental health program, I was looking for a place I could work with clients from a neurodiversity-affirming place. So what that means is, you know, again, there's nothing wrong with you as a neurodivergent person, ⁓ but you've grown up in a world built for neurotypical people and that's caused you trauma. So let's help you heal the trauma.

But unfortunately, I couldn't find a single place in the entire front range of Colorado that had this orientation. ⁓ And so I'm so grateful. On Google came up neurodiverse counseling services, a practice in Arizona. And my supervisor, David Meir, he got licensed in Colorado specifically to help me and my neurodivergent colleague and friend set up our practices because we needed a supervisor.

And I'm so grateful to him. He taught me about what neurodiversity affirming care can look like not only as a therapist, but as a manager. He was like, let's help you figure out what your good caseload is. Like he wasn't like, I need you to work 25 hours a week so I make money. He was like, ⁓ 12 clients. That's it. Yeah, that's good. Great. Do that. He was so just like, how do I create an environment that works for you? ⁓ So I'm truly grateful to him and

About a year after working under him, he pushed me out of the nest and was like, you're ready, go start your practice. And I was like, great, I'm starting a therapy and training practice because I need to train other therapists and other organizations and corporations and schools how to really create an neurodiversity affirming environment because it helps everyone be more productive. It helps everyone, you know, get along better. And in the therapy sense, it helps people actually process the trauma they need to process and get the accommodations they need.

That's why I founded my practice.

Jen (26:40)
And your rarity, I don't know if I could find someone. I'm in Massachusetts, so maybe I could find someone because we are more progressive in that way. But I can only imagine it is so terribly difficult for neurodiverse people to get the mental health they need.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (27:03)
Yeah, unfortunately, it's really tough. There's, thank goodness, in the last few years, a lot of neurodivergent therapists coming into the field in Colorado. And there's a lot of people running groups and individual therapy that I refer to. And I'm so, so grateful that this has become ⁓ something that people are looking out for and aware of.

⁓ but there's still, there's still not enough of us. And unfortunately it tends to be the neurodivergent therapists who are neurodiversity affirming. And this is such a needed area for neurotypical therapists to come in and get their training and really show up so we can increase access. mean, there's more autism diagnoses now, there's more ADHD diagnoses now, and these people, including myself, we often need therapy to help us unwind the trauma that we've experienced. So.

It's important.

Jen (27:59)
So how would you describe neurodiversity affirming care?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (28:05)
Yeah. So, you know, there's the big view to start with, which is that, again, no one's broken. I'm going to say this over and over in the podcast because you can't say enough. Can't say it enough. And it's a process of working through your internalized ableism for everyone, myself included. I have internalized ableism. Neuro-typical people have internalized ableism. Maybe we can talk more about that in a bit. But

Jen (28:15)
Well, you're right. That's right.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (28:34)
What neurodiversity for human care is, is recognizing that no one's broken. They might have traits or ways of experiencing the world that are different from what society deems normal. And let's help you figure out what those are, celebrate them and help you get the accommodations you need. That's the big view. That's what we're doing. It's pretty simple in a way. It's like, I appreciate this person in front of me for who they are and I'm not trying to fix them because they're not broken. Yeah.

Jen (28:53)
Hmm?

No, they're not.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (29:05)
They're not. Yeah. And then the next level is you get into the more specifics of like, okay, we're going to be doing a lot of trauma healing here probably because of the ableism in society. We're going to be working with sensory sensitivities or going to be working with attention differences, or we're going to be just like learning about those traits that make this person unique and who they are and helping them towards the goals that they want. So maybe someone wants to make some friends. Great. Let's support them with that.

not through social skills training, but through helping them identify what are their friends' values, what are their values in a friend. And guess what? I've seen it over and over and over again. Someone identifies those values. They're like, okay, I like friends with these values and these are my friendship values. And then people just start popping up who share those values and who they actually have interesting conversations with. So that's an example of rather than teaching someone to be normal, you're exploring what they enjoy and what's really important to them.

so they can go out and find it and bring it into their life.

Jen (30:06)
think it's really important for neurotypical people to understand that they don't have to come to us, we should go to them.

Open our world up to understand that this person needs something different. And even if you don't understand that difference, it doesn't mean that they don't deserve for you to open up your world for them.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (30:29)
Yes, you're talking about the double empathy problem here, which is this notion that neurotypical and neurodivergent people, we have different languages often, especially more autistic versus non-autistic people or holistic people. And there are those differences. But in this culture and a medicalized ⁓ culture, those differences and those differences in communication

or difficulties communicating are blamed on the autistic people. The double empathy problem says, actually, it's just a different language and both people need to figure out how to communicate with each other. But neurodivergent people, we're trying so hard. We really are trying really hard to understand how neurotypical people communicate. But neurotypical people often don't try hard, which is what I'm hearing you say, Jen, which is like neurotypical people

Jen (31:23)
Yes.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (31:26)
you need to like have that open mind, drop your assumptions, just drop those assumptions of that this person's experience matches your experience as a neurotypical person and be like, ⁓ you told me the lights are bothering you. Instead of saying, you're too sensitive, which can be the narrative in your mind, you can say, ⁓ I'm going to believe you. You are experiencing the lights as too much right now. You're feeling sensitive to lights. Great.

Maybe we can turn off the lights. There's lots of light coming in the windows today.

Jen (32:02)
Yeah, and it's a simple thing, right? Just opening up your mind to the world of others, whether they are neurotypical or neurodiverse, just keeping an open mind of what others need in this world for you to all exist, coexist, right?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (32:26)
Yeah, yeah, everyone can get their needs met. Sometimes there might be some differences like someone needs to move and someone gets easily distracted by movement. Great, have someone in the back moving and then someone sitting in the front looking this way and so they can't see the person moving. We can all get our accommodations met for the most part. I won't say 100 % of the time, but let's say 99.9 % of the time. We can all get what we need.

Jen (32:50)
Yes. And we spoke about this when we talked before, but there seems to be a ⁓ backlash on autism politically right now. And it breaks my heart. It really does. It really breaks my heart that it just seems like there's an attack now. They're talking about autism as, again, a disease, as something that's that

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (33:03)
Yes.

Jen (33:18)
happened to someone and it's wrong that it happened to them. What are your thoughts on this?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (33:22)
Yeah.

I really understand and empathize with parents who have a kid who is maybe non-speaking, who maybe they have co-occurring medical conditions like a seizure disorder or autoimmune disorders or things like that. It is really, really, really hard to raise a kid who is disabled in those ways in a society where we're atomized into these homes where there's maybe one, two parents on average. ⁓

We have less strong social support, so we don't have someone who can maybe look after our kid for a few hours so we can take a break without having maybe to pay someone. ⁓ We don't have places we can take our kid to that feel just like that are free and accommodating and ⁓ supportive to our kids. ⁓ And without all of those supports, it's really, really hard and draining and exhausting. ⁓ It's, yeah, yeah.

Jen (34:21)
It is.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (34:25)
And so it's important to acknowledge, understand where the seeing autism as a disease comes from because a lot of parents are like, I don't want my kid to suffer. And this is really hard. This is really hard. Yeah.

time, there's this balance between pathologizing someone ⁓ because of their traits and accepting them for who they are because of those neurodiversion traits. Yes, always as parents, always try to find the best supports for your kids. But you can do that without saying my kid is broken or my kid is diseased because that translates into adults.

and all the clients that I work with and the messages I received, even without knowing I was autistic, the messages we all received that were broken or deficient in some way, that is really the biggest barrier to contentment, happiness and good mental health. There was a study that looked at what contributed to happiness in ⁓ autistic people. And it wasn't found that like,

support needs, meaning like how much support someone needed, that wasn't correlated with happiness. It was how much someone got the support they needed. That's what was correlated with happiness. So if someone was like, I need this and now you get it, they're like, great, I feel seen, heard, appreciated. They're like, I need this, but I'm not getting it. That sends the message, I'm not okay. And our society is really bad at providing those needs to

autistic people who are non-speaking or have co-occurring medical conditions. ⁓ yeah, I know I speak in a complex way about this, but that's because I really want to make sure this isn't a binary thing that we're not approaching it from a binary perspective.

Jen (36:25)
Yes, yes. And as you said, it is difficult. When my son received his diagnosis, my PTSD response was, am I to blame for this? And I did the research and I did it all. For months, I looked it up and I got the answers that I think everyone inside knows they just don't want to believe is that this didn't happen to my child, right? And I think that that's...

And it's also important that parents do realize that they do need support with this and that there are supports out there that help your child, but also help you, help you to better understand, right? Again, not bending your child to the will of society, but the exact opposite.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (37:17)
Yeah, yeah. The biggest thing when I am teaching people how to be neurodiversity affirming, the biggest thing I'm teaching them is what's it like to be this neurotype from the inside out?

because we're often taught what the neurotype is from the outside in. this person hits, this person loses their attention. This person doesn't understand, doesn't look at me. But what's it like on the inside? On the inside, it might be like, I'm really bored by this person, so my attention's wandering right now. Or it might be, wow, I can hear that light buzzing right now, and it's really distracting, and it's actually hard to pay attention to this person right now.

Or it could be, have 7,000 things happening inside. I've got thoughts, I've got emotions, I've got sensory experiences, and it's beautiful and amazing and overwhelming, but I just do not have the capacity to now pay attention to the outside. And when you can actually deeply empathize, that's when you can support a neurodivergent person. Because it's a dodge in the therapy world. First comes acceptance, then change.

There is no change without acceptance.

Jen (38:33)
Yes, I personally have been through that. And you're right, the sooner we accept that there's a difference and not a disease, the sooner we're able to empathize and give our children what they need.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (38:50)
Yeah. ⁓

Jen (38:52)
I have two questions for you. They're advice questions. So number one, what advice would you give someone who thinks that they're on the spectrum?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (39:03)
Yeah, I love that question. Thank you. ⁓ So the first thing I would do go check out the website, embraceautism.com. Yeah, embrace autism, that is a website that has a bunch of information about autism, and also a bunch of tests, ⁓ you know, not standardized tests, but a bunch of things you can take to learn, ⁓ do I have some autistic traits? And then as you do that, you learn about your autistic traits, and then you go look them up.

⁓ And you see like, okay, do I have a lot of these? Do I just have a few of these? ⁓ And does this diagnosis resonate with me? So that would be the first step, learn about it. And then second step would be, okay, go find an assessor who, you know, takes your insurance if you need that ⁓ and see what they say, but make sure A, they're neurodiversity affirming, especially if you're not a white, cis, middle-class man.

Jen (39:58)
Yes.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (40:02)
And ask them if they have experience working with people with your shared identities like women or trans or BIPOC to make sure you're not the first person they're seeing ⁓ of those identities.

Jen (40:17)
That's great advice. And it is hard to find a neuropsychologist. Even back in my day, it was for my son. So I can imagine there's probably going to be a wait list. And you're probably going to need to wait a month for them to go through all of the findings and get back to you about these things. But do it. Do it for yourself. Right?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (40:41)
Yeah,

it can be so relieving like you said, Jen, to find out, ⁓ I'm just different. I'm just different.

Jen (40:49)
Yeah. Okay, the other piece of advice. What advice would you give to parents that believe they may have an autistic child?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (40:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, okay. So first, go find some autistic bloggers, autistic podcasters, autistic people who have written books, go read what it's like to be autistic. Your kid might have a hard time, mean, all kids have a hard time describing what it's like when they're young to be them. That's just part of being a kid. But your kid might have an extra hard time being autistic and not being given the language.

describe their inner world. They literally might not know the words because they haven't been given them. So go learn how other people describe being autistic in order to A get your kid empathize with them, B accept them for who they are, love them for who they are, and then C maybe you can support them with finding the language to describe their inner experience so that they can also be seen heard felt seen felt heard because that's a really

key experience for any kid growing up is to have that sensation of being felt and seen.

Jen (42:05)
Beautiful. Again, your advice, your explanations have really opened up my world and I know it will open up the world of my listeners. So I thank you very much for that. Where can we find you, Lila?

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (42:21)
Yeah, so you can connect with me and learn more at divergentpadscounseling.com. ⁓ And if you want to book me for neurodiversity affirming speaking engagements, workshops, consultations, it's divergentpadscounseling.com slash booklyla. ⁓ I also have a 24 CE training program called New Pathways to Neurodiversity-Affirming Care, and that's for therapists.

where we delve into understanding autism, ADHD, and giftedness, how to adapt your modalities, and relationships of all types. And that kicks off on January 30th of 2026 and is ongoing. So I look forward to seeing some of your listeners there. ⁓ Yeah.

Jen (43:05)
Yes.

Well, thank you again, Lila. This has been such an amazing conversation.

Lila Low-Beinart MA LPC (43:12)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Jen.

Jen (43:15)
Yes, thanks. ⁓

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (43:19)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty. We hope you found today's conversation inspiring. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC and I'm your producer, Jen Ginty. We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. If you have a story of your own about when a not yet moment came right now,

We encourage you to reach out and share it. You can find more information about being a guest on our show at whennotyetbecomesrightnow.com. Remember, you are not alone on your journey, whether it's a journey of healing, growth, or transformation. Every story matters. Thank you for listening, and we'll catch you next time with another inspiring episode.