Nam Kiwanuka: You're listening to Mistreated. I'm Nam Kiwanuka. Historically, we've been told that autism is something that mostly impacts boys and men. But a recent study from February 2026 shows that autism is almost as prevalent in girls as it is in boys. The difference is that girls are often diagnosed much later in life. On today's episode, we speak with Julie M. Green about what it was like to be diagnosed with autism as a mother at age 44 while also raising a child on the spectrum. She documents this experience in her book, Motherness, a memoir of generational autism, parenthood, and radical acceptance. Julie and I talk about the history of autism, and why girls are often underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed. We talk about what a refrigerator mother is and why they were once blamed for autism in children. Surprise, surprise. When in doubt, blame the mother. Julie also speaks out against the harmful stereotype that people with autism don't feel empathy and why she's concerned about autism becoming the boogeyman of our times. Julie joins me now. Could you please introduce yourself, Julie?

Julie Green: Sure. My name is Julie Green. I'm a writer based in Kingston.

Nam Kiwanuka: Uh you wrote this really beautiful book called Motherness, a memoir of generational autism, Parenthood and Radical Acceptance. Can you tell us more about what prompted this book?

Julie Green: Yeah. Um kind of twofold. Uh really um the the real impetus came after my own autism diagnosis. So my son was diagnosed at three and then 10 years later I finally got an inkling that I might also be autistic. More on that later. But um it took 10 years in the process and then just look I was 44 at the time which is quite late but it turns out quite common um for women to find out late in life. And there was this process of sort of I guess this post-mortem, well sounds morbid, but looking back through my life and all these situations that happen and relationships and through a new lens now that I had that understanding that I was autistic. Um, so through all that analysis, I was also thinking, well, how does that compare with my son? There's so many similarities. um there's such overlap but yet there's so many differences as well and that just gave me kind of the structure an idea for the book. So um the way it is structured is that it alternates between my experience of of parenting my son from the time I was pregnant till he's 13 and interspersed with that are my own experiences and I've broken it down um by I guess autistic traits or things that we would associate with autism. So comparing, you know, for instance, his experience with sensory um issues compared to mine. Um and it also sort of highlights all the ways that we're we're different and similar because everyone knows autism is a spectrum yet what comes down to it, we still I think expect everyone to for it to present in one way. So...

Nam Kiwanuka: um, you've, uh, mentioned a lot of things that I want to do follow-ups on to, uh, including the fact that you find out that you're on the spectrum at age 44. But, um, I wanted to just talk a little bit about the title of the book. I think the word motherness is so interesting and I wanted to ask you, what does that mean? Why did you What is motherness?

Julie Green: Oh, and I I had to fight for this title because, you know, publishers, people don't take kindly when you want to make up a word. How dare you? But to me, it was it was like the perfect um you know, mashup to this whole idea of of being of being otherred um and having grown up feeling like you don't fit and you don't know why. You just do have this sense that you are other. Um, and even the sense, I guess, as a as a mother raising a child with a disability, there's also an othering there where you're often isolated. Um, at a certain point, don't really um fit with your peers who are raising typical kids. You feel like you can't join in the same events or it's quite stressful. People don't really understand what you're going through. So, there's that whole side of otherness as well. um that I I talk about um because even aside from me being autistic, there's this whole journey of raising an autistic child. And a lot of the things that I found even within the autism community weren't really talked about that often. And I know certainly in the early years with my son, I felt extremely isolated, uh, very alone, um, a whole range of emotions. And, you know, it wasn't it wasn't that it was always this this tragic narrative that we see. It wasn't it wasn't terrible. There were we had a lot of fun as a family and everything, but we also felt quite I felt quite cut off in a lot of ways. Um, so I wanted to explore some of that as well because I had not really seen myself in other books. So I I I guess it was the first or is to my knowledge the first memoir of a parent who is autist you know a woman who is autistic as a parent who is also raising an autistic child because we have memoirs by autistic advocates who by and large don't have children and then we have the memoirs by the parents uh raising autistic children but nothing really I think that that combined those those experiences which is increasing ly common now where a lot of parents are realizing their own neurode divergence through their children and not earlier.

Nam Kiwanuka: That is so interesting because it's so it's this experience. I mean when you become a parent it's already kind of like this is not like you really have to be in it to understand it and then now you're in it but then you're you're feeling this sense of like otherness.

Julie Green: Correct. Yeah. This would have been around 2012. We weren't nearly where we are with autism awareness. Um, I mean, the internet was wasn't quite what it is now. You didn't have all this information at your fingertips. You didn't have um all these forums and communities where you could learn about autism or or you know, by autistic advocates. Um, so it was a very different place. It was basically I felt like, you know, you had a social worker. You'd get the report saying, "Yes, your child has this diagnosis. Good luck. Off you go. Get the services." And I, you know, my partner and I knew virtually nothing about autism, uh, autism then. So, it was a really steep learning curve. And there at the time it was all about my son. And there was no inkling even that, you know, it was only very slowly certain things I understood about him intuitively. And I thought, okay, like maybe there's something to that. you know, I understand I want to cover my ears and I understand why he can't wear this, but he can wear that. And um but then there were so many differences too that I just pushed it in the back of my mind for many years. And I was I was too busy honestly just learning about him and and just you know deep in the weeds uh in the reads or whatever um to even consider anything about myself.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um, you mentioned that you and your child um shared a lot of different things including face blindness. Um, and you write uh that you write this. I've taken out the swear words, but you write this. Between my emotional state and my facial expression lies a disconnect. A flat a flat or vacant stare may make me appear bored or even hostile when I'm simply concentrating. I may look downright peed off when I am wrapped and attentive. In other words, I have chronic resting beef face. Well, this admission uh this admission made me laugh out loud because it's relatable. Uh but it also felt heavy. Uh writing a book is one thing, but having to promote it and do interviews is another. What has this process been like for you?

Julie Green: Yeah. Um, you know, I'm I'm lucky in a in a strange sense that, you know, we have the likes of Zoom these days and because people will say to me, "Oh, your book tour." And I'm saying, "Well, no, there is no tour, you know, by by design." Um, I've made it so that I've I've done a lot of these sort of appearances. You know, radio and podcasts are forgiving. Like, I'm stmming off camera. I can um it's a lot more comfortable. I don't have to leave my home. It eliminates a lot of elements. Um still very very grueling and I've had to be quite conscious about how I schedule things and I've because I've I've had phases where I've been burning getting close to burning out. I'm trying to be more conscious about being authentic and and not trying to mask but there's still naturally an element of you know this is quite uh tiring and social um even though technology helps a lot. So, um, yeah, autist because autistic people and I mean a lot of writers, not even autistic people, but you know, authors tend to want to be um, introverted and we do this private solitary work and then suddenly in the age we're in now, you're expected to go out there, be everywhere, and, you know, making reals and promoting yourself and uh, being a brand. And it's it's very uncomfortable and um like just this idea of being perceived as something a lot of autistic people struggle with um myself included and it but you know it's also a necessary evil.

Nam Kiwanuka: You mentioned masking and I I want to come back to masking. I I want to talk about how you got to um know this diagnosis. You wrote for years that you sat on the fence about getting assessed with autism at 44. You finally get assessed in the book. You write this. "You are autistic. The doctor says now impossible. I can't be on the spectrum is your first thought. I am not Rainman, Sheldon Cooper, or even Temple Grandon." And Temple Grandon is a scientist and activist who wrote the autistic brain. Um, what I thought was really interesting at this time, you are um raising a child on the spectrum. So looking back, can you describe what it felt like to get that diagnosis and also why you reacted that way?

Julie Green: Yeah. Well, like everyone, all we have are the stereotypes and that's all I knew of autism for the longest time until the only inkling that maybe made me start to consider it um was meeting another late diagnosed autistic woman and I thought, "Oh, wow. Okay. You mean autism doesn't have to look like Rainman, Sheldon Cooper, and even Temple Grandon? So, those people weren't, you know, it was it was a rare thing. And it was the first um autistic woman I had interacted with. She was another parent and we'd met through sort of the blogosphere as it was called back then. Um and then finally one day I just broached the subject with my doctor who luckily didn't gaslight me um and say oh well you know you have friends don't you and you can make eye contact so you must not cuz I know a lot of women approach it and they are shot down um but fortunately my doctor I have a doctor and she was receptive and she um put me forward for the assessment and then I kind of forgot about it in a way and then a year later I my name came up in the weight list and uh obviously then had had the full uh assessment done and so in a in a strange way I'd been mulling over the possibility for a very very long time. So um it was weird. So when the the the actual words were delivered and you get that report, um it was like relief like finally I know for sure that's what it is and I expected it but also it was like oh then you're reading the report and you're like well really in a way I kind of didn't think I was and then you're reading the scoring and you're like oh...

Nam Kiwanuka: um okay interesting for you to finally like understand uh who you are. What was it like to fully understand like to get you to know yourself perhaps for the first time at age 44?

Julie Green: Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. So many people rally against labels, but it's you know what, you get these other labels. if I'm not calling it autism, then I I'd internalized a lot of other labels like you're you're very rigid or why are you why are you this way? Um um you know, why are you why are you such a princess? Why can't you handle this? Why can't you cope with that? And so I'd internalized a lot of that. Um and it just creates a lot of problems um with my mental health quite honestly. Um, so I think it's it's a shame it's this late in life, but it's and I still catch myself because it's very hard to unlearn what what you've believed all along. So I will have to try to catch myself now and say, well, no, you can't handle that because this, you know, because of of your difference um you know, your neurology, it's it's it's not um a character flaw. So it does kind of take take time. It's a work in progress um to try to um you know get sort of rewrite those those old narratives.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um so I think um I think historically there has been this perception that autism mostly impacts boys and what you are sharing with us. It's showing some of the harm that can come out of girls not being diagnosed or um and you wrote I wanted to read something that you wrote in the book. You write this. "Ever since Austrian-American psychiatrist and physician Leo Canor first described quote early infantile autism in 1943, the face of autism has been white cis and male. It's not that autistic girls and women did not exist. We have always been here hidden in plain sight." Why is it important to broaden the understanding of what the face of autism looks like?

Julie Green: Well, it's Oh, it's so important like for the reasons I said as well because what's what's happening is is not that autistic girls weren't existing. We were missed and so many of us are diagnosed later. Um, and we're not getting any, you know, we're not getting we we've gone through childhood, adolescence, whatever, early adulthood without any understanding or support. So that's obviously crucial on a lot of levels. So in terms of mental health, we're often misdiagnosed. Um which is why, you know, it's such a perfect theme for for your podcast. So uh frequently women or girls were diagnosed with depression, which is kind of a core morbid thing, but it doesn't tell the full picture. Or often things like borderline personality disorder, also very common. Um and also health we tend to have other um health conditions like um I talk about in the book a lot and migraines in my case there's now like proven correlation we have issues with um some gastrointestinal issues um you know there's a higher incidence of like eating disorders um reproductive disorders endometriosis there's like a much higher incidence this in autistic women. So, if we're not realizing that these women are autistic, then not only are they not getting mental health support um because we're not we're not labeling it giving it the right name, we're not so we're also not really understanding and viewing getting them the support for for the medical conditions that we you know that we have in tandem with autism. So, we need to sort of see the the full picture. Um so yeah and not least which that uh people are growing up sort of uh full of self-loathing and not understanding who they are when you know they can they can have they can be advocating for themselves. They can be getting to know um what they need to be healthier and happier. So I think that's vital at any age. Um but you know as you say it's it's time it's trying to revamp the research and the science because if all the research um was just involving these young white boys and how that version of autism presented then even the diagnostic criteria now needs to catch up. Um there may be I think a new test that actually measures masking. Um, so I think they're are trying to take steps to redress that because, you know, of course, women and girls will continue to be missed if we're using diagnostic criteria that was solely aimed at the presentation of autism for boys or a very select presentation.

Nam Kiwanuka: You've mentioned masking a couple of times. What is masking?

Julie Green: Yeah. Um, it's it's I think a lot of people imagine it's like acting. It's not a it's not a conscious thing so much as um a way of being safe um and and fitting in. So in my case a lot of it is mirroring. So in my case it was it was like being quite mute and shy and observing and trying to copy things you know copy how you've read girls. I used to read a lot of books. It actually is probably the reason I I became a writer. I got very into reading novels because I was actually studying how people act. So, a lot of people will also watch TV shows and try to learn and copy and mimic people. So, um they'll try to um you know make the same kind of non-verbal gestures um scripting. We often rehearse rehearse conversations or certain phrases that people use. Um it's like a very stressful and unnatural thing to do, but at the same point those of us can do it um are are safer in a way because we can we can pass um we can pass for typical. We're not standing out. So, our autism is more invisible and it's not as obvious, but the cost of that is um a lot of just chronic um stress and and these conditions I think on the nervous system. You know, I kept getting I kept getting sick all through my life and I I still do, but I'm I have a better understanding of it now. Um but that kind of disregulation in your nervous system catches up with you and um it can lead it often leads to to burnout.

Nam Kiwanuka: It's really it's heartbreaking what you're saying because you're aware that you should be behaving in a certain way which goes against how you feel in your own body. Um, you mentioned a few times the differences because I think when we think of someone being on the autistic spectrum, we think of uh maybe how boys present, someone who is maybe um having a tantrum somewhere, maybe they're just a child, but anyway, we have these ideas in our society of what it looks like. What are the So, what are the differences in how girls present with autism when compared with boys?

Julie Green: Yeah. And that's part of the re masking is like a big part of the reason that girls do get missed because we have this ability. So a few things would be um that we're more socially motivated. So we might someone might say well you have friends but well if you scratch the surface you'll see that there's a lot of like striving. We might still get a lot of social things wrong. Um, you know, we may rehearse these conversations or constantly like misstep and there's still a lot of social confusion, but we may actually have a friend. Our interests are a little can be a little more conventional. So, we still have quite intense interests, but it might be like that we're really obsessed with um Barbies or or hats or horses or or whatever. So sometimes the interests don't stand out because they're very much in line or like say a pop star or something like that, you know. So that wouldn't really stand out among um other girls in our peer group. But again, it's kind of like the the intensity and the level of it, you know, where it's like the cataloging and just the level of interest, you know? I think about it now, like I've always been really into music, but lots of people are into music, but I would literally have hundreds of things and I would have it all aletized and cataloged and it was all like a real um you know that that points it gears it a little bit to something a bit more um more autistic. But um the other thing too as I said is just the gender bias element that um you know boys tend to show their autism in a more external way whereas what when girls are distressed or struggling it tends to be more internal. Um so as I said a lot of um eating issues, a lot of sensory issues. Um and it so the big difference with my son and I and a lot of girls versus boys is the boys I mean girls would have meltdowns too but these my son would have these huge reactions where you know aggression, throwing things, breaking things, massive explosions. Whereas a lot of girls would have things called shutdowns where they would just pretty much curl into a ball, break down or not be able to speak for a while, like have to retreat um and recover from any social outing. Um so, you know, it's things like in in school the girls wouldn't get much attention because you you'd put your head down, you'd want to please, you'd do your work, but it doesn't mean you're not struggling. It's just less visible.

Nam Kiwanuka: This is Mistreated and you've been listening to our conversation with Julie M. Green. Her book, Motherness, is a memoir on raising a child on the spectrum and receiving an autism diagnosis herself at age 44. We'll get back to it shortly, but I want to take some time to examine why girls on the autism spectrum have historically been ignored and how that's changing. For decades, researchers studied autism symptoms in boys. The first description of autism is credited to Leo Cannor, an Austrian American psychiatrist who referred to it as quote early infantile autism in 1943. A year later in 1944, Hans Asperger separately described a similar condition and it became known as Asperger syndrome. But that name has been clawed back after allegations that Asperger collaborated with Nazis during World War II. And according to the UK's National Autistic Society, quote, what was referred to as Asperger syndrome is part of the autism spectrum and there is no need for a separate term. In the 1980s, autism became recognized as a neurodedevelopmental condition that existed on a continuum. That's when the term autism spectrum disorder or ASD emerged. Today, advocates call for using words like condition or neurological difference to remove the negative associations with the word disorder. While labels might change over time, there's one thing that stayed the same. The symptoms of autistic girls have not been widely recognized. A paper from 2022 reveals that quote, nearly 80% of girls with ASD are missed. And in February 2026, a study from Sweden published by the BMJ suggested that autism may occur at similar rates in males and females, but boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed in childhood. The study found that by the age of 20, diagnosis rates of men and women were almost equal. And the lead author of the study, Dr. Caroline Fe said, quote, "Our findings suggest that the gender difference in autism prevalence is much lower than previously thought due to women and girls being underdiagnosed or diagnosed late." According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that's because, quote, "Girls with ASD have less well-recoognized symptom profiles or higher intellectual ability, better language skills, and perceived better social skills." But these perceived better social skills are often a result of girls masking or camouflaging their symptoms as they also often do with ADHD. Aid Canada, a national nonprofit that shares resources on autism and other intellectual disabilities says that quote 90% of females have engaged in camouflaging. This behavior may make it harder to identify autism in female presenting people. Some autistic people credit camouflaging for their social and vocational successes as they experience less stigma and marginalization in these spaces when their autistic traits are less pronounced. But camouflaging is exhausting for the individual and is a risk marker for suicide. Camouflaging also prevents or delays diagnosis for autism and can reinforce how sex and gender often shapes health outcomes for people with autism. Getting a timely diagnosis can help to identify additional conditions. Girls and women on the autism spectrum are more likely to experience seizure disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, headaches and migraines, Ella's down syndrome, endometriosis, autoimmune disease, asthma, and food allergies. Studies also show a connection between autism and PCOS, now PMOS. And a timely diagnosis can also help individuals better understand themselves. A 2023 study found that ASD and neurotypical females had a comparable number of sexual experiences they later regretted. But ASD females were two times more likely to have consented to an unwanted sexual event compared to their neurotypical peers. While research is catching up with reality, there is still so much misinformation. Back in September 2025, US President Donald Trump blamed mothers taking Tylenol during pregnancy for autism. And this wasn't the first time that mothers have been blamed for this condition. In the 50s, so-called refrigerator mothers were blamed for being emotionally cold and causing their children's autism. In the 1990s, a doctor blamed the MMR vaccine for causing autism. Even though his paper was retracted and his medical license revoked, the belief that the measles vaccine could cause autism persisted. While Canada successfully eliminated measles in 1998, we lost our elimination status in 2025. Back to Julie now to talk more about refrigerator mothers.

Nam Kiwanuka: People just love blaming mothers generally. It's just so easy, isn't it? Um, some people blame mothers all the way into adulthood.

Julie Green: Um yeah, so this was um I guess in the in the 50s they they didn't really understand anything about autism. They didn't understand that so much is is hereditary. Um so of course they they made this connection that well mothers who were emotionally cold ended up um causing the child's autism. And it took quite a while for that idea for you know research and science to disprove that and it just it just took hold for way longer than it should have and that's um...

Nam Kiwanuka: well the solution for that the solution for this refrigerated mother was something called a parent talk to me parent talk to me. What is that?

Julie Green: I see you're taking me back. It's been a while since I've uh written and and done all this. that was um some children were actually forcibly removed from their families. Um which you can only imagine how horrific that is now. Um and the point is too many of these mothers maybe weren't performing motherhood in the way that it was. Many were probably autistic quite honestly. Um, and they weren't performing motherhood in in maybe the way that was expected. So, they were assumed to be emotionally cold and they had their children taken away. It's it's shocking.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um, I have a few more questions to ask. Um, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the chapter on empathy because I thought that was just so beautifully written. Uh, you write, "One of the most hurtful stereotypes about autistic people, there are many, is that we lack empathy. It's not that autists don't care about others. We care tremendously. It's more that we don't always enact empathy according to the world's standards." Can you tell me more about that?

Julie Green: Yeah, and again, this was, I think, something I had internalized as well. Um because I mean some people don't don't show it in conventional ways. Some people have too much of it or I feel like it's it's misplaced or it doesn't come out in the way that's socially acceptable. Um and I talk about it in the book. For instance, I I lost my grandmother that I was very close to, but I felt I didn't react much at the time and I was very hard on myself thinking like what is wrong with me? Am I a monster? Um sometimes it's just processing times and just the way we process things is different. So it's um I think what they have proven as well I don't think the research is in the book but in terms of um oh and I'm going to get it wrong there's there's two types of empathy. So one is um how you experience empathy and one is sort of how you act empathy. So autistic people were found to show exactly the same levels of you know experiential whatever I forget the actual term of empathy whereas where we we're different was in the way we were performing it and showing empathy. And of course though people are like so quick to judge. Um if you're not displaying empathy in the right way then you look you look cold or you look unfeilling or you look insensitive. um or you just look like melodramatic and you know like I had a really difficult time when I lost my pet and you know autistic people tend to be just as attached to the pe our animals as they are with our people but I was thinking this is just so offkilter I'm way more destroyed and griefstricken over my my dog than I am my grandmother but it was all just in different ways and shapes that it came out and you get a lot of shame around that and I internalized a lot of shame thinking I'm not I'm not performing empathy in an accepted way is either way too much in a way or you know over something that I shouldn't be feeling so much about or it's not enough or it's just not on the right timeline. Um and that's unfortunate. we just have so many social constructs around around grief and what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. Um, and that's that's unfortunate because again this is something that's really dogged autistic people and a lot of people I think still still really buy into that idea that we we lack empathy.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um, I I want to read something else that you wrote. Um, you write, "Autism became the boogeyman of our times. The worst possible thing that could happen to your child, a fate apparently worse than death or disfigurement from some hitherto eradicated disease." Parents became fierce and outspoken opponents to vaccines and other supposed toxins in their children's diet or environment. As usual, moms found themselves at the forefront of what appeared to be a moral crusade. Having done the research for this book and also being a mom on the spectrum with a child on the spectrum, what do you think is most misunderstood about autism?

Julie Green: Oh, wow. Gosh, there's so many. I mean, the empathy was the big one that we touched on. I mean, just the the capacity of, you know, what's what's possible that we're we're complex humans like anybody else. Um, and unfortunately a lot of the times in the media we're not portrayed that way, you know, and I think unless people have someone who's autistic in their their lives and they they really see them as multi-dimensional people, we're stuck with these these stereotypes that someone's a savant um you know, some amazing neurosurgeon or whatever. um or um you know on the flip side that we're just a blight on humanity and you know you don't want to read the comment section on some things because unfortunately people will still say this like I would I would hope I would hope my child is is dead then has autism. I've read it. It just shows that for all the awareness and all the forward progress we feel like we've made in terms of neurodiversity and this this movement um there is still a long way to go and a lot of people unfortunately are still holding on to a lot of very backwards ideas and would sooner have us back in the ages of having people in institutionalized and not having people out there.

Nam Kiwanuka: Well, you do write about this uh fear and I want to read one one last passage from the book. You write, "What scares me most are other people, other children, teachers, parents, politicians. Autistic people face an increased risk of being bullied and victimized. Those who are non-binary or gender non-conforming are further marginalized, experiencing poorer physical and mental health, less access to health care, and a greater likelihood of sexual assault. sexual harassment and verbal harassment compared with a general population. As a mother and also a person who has done the research, what do you say to someone who thinks they may be on the spectrum and may or may not also be raising a child on the spectrum?

Julie Green: Well, that's the hard thing, right? We live in really scary times and it can be it can be tempting to just sort of bury your head thinking you're going to protect your child from harm and by not stigmatizing them, but the fact is they're going to be stigmatized anyway. You know, people people pick up on difference. I I know from just being in my son's class in kindergarten, people would run up to me. I was volunteering just as a means to sort of help him and support him. And all these children were coming up to me as young as kindergarten going, "Why is he doing that? Why isn't he answering me? Why is he being like that?" Um they knew right away like people just latch on to difference right away. And if and if we don't if we don't call it what it is, um there'll be other names, you know, they're they're they'll be bullying, they'll be called a freak. Um, so it was important for me to have those conversations with my son and with other kids that I encountered to try to lay the groundwork to to say yes, you know, he absolutely is different. This is sort of how he ticks and this is, you know, this is why it's like we always likened it to like a different operating system, you know, like Mac versus Windows or whatever. um as opposed to because the more we try to ignore this people will just be otherred and I don't know I think the more we we normalize it and we we have people u autistic people who are visible and we can generally really see it as a spectrum and hopefully it'll be less stigmatizing. I mean that's why you know that's why I wrote the book. I mean parents all we want all want to protect our children but you you can't protect them from the world. Um and it is it is quite scary now that it does feel like we're going backwards in so many so many respects.

Nam Kiwanuka: Um but a lot of people think differently. So we have to keep uh talking about it and making autism visible. Well, thank you so much for writing the book. I think it's going to expand the conversation and it's also um goes into history as this is something that happens and has happened. Uh my last question to you is that for most of your life you've been judged for who you are. Uh but you were probably the hardest on yourself. In the book you wrote that quote, "I screwed up. I always screwed up." In what ways did writing this book help you to understand yourself better?

Julie Green: you know, it's difficult. Um, memoir is such an interesting thing because people like, "Oh, how did you deal?" Like the parts the parts that were the most difficult to write were also the most cathartic to write. So in a lot of ways revisiting some of those instances from my own childhood or you know adolescence early early adulthood um I think it really helped me to look back on that girl or young woman and just give her more grace and compassion and I think get back to that place before I knew before I felt otherred before I realized I was different and and kind of um cut myself off because I mean that's what I would love like my my son doesn't really mask he is who he is which you know for better or for worse like in some ways it would be easier if he could mask but it's not healthy and I I love seeing that he's his authentic funny like there's so much humor in the book because he's so funny um and I I just think that is such a gift that I would never want someone to have to put themselves into this like metaphorical box, you know, and it's just it's very hard, but I'm I'm trying to get out of that box now and to get back to the person I am. Uh, and it's you you lose yourself if you've if you've grown up um not feeling you could be yourself. you you don't even and you've masked so along you don't even quite know who is that person. So is this whole process of unlearning.

Nam Kiwanuka: Julie, it's been really lovely having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for making time for us. And uh in the book, I think the chapter on Elvis um had me like laughing out loud. Uh thank you so much for taking time to speak with me. Uh is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Julie Green: I'm just um so glad to be here and it's it's really great to talk with you.

Nam Kiwanuka: This was Mistreated. Thanks for listening. You can follow our show wherever you download your podcast so you can get notified each time a new episode is available. We would love to hear your feedback. You can write me an email at mistreatedodcast@tvo.org or reach out to me on social media. Thank you for all of your emails and comments. We appreciate the response to the podcast. I'd like to read a comment from our episode on how endometriosis behaves like a cancer. Sarah writes, "Thank you for holding this conversation. I'm 31 years old and I've been suffering for 18 years. I just had my surgery last month and properly diagnosed with stage three endometriosis. It's been a struggle. I'm happy to have an answer, but I'm grateful for the health care professionals who are listening to their patients and willing to learn and find new paths for us to heal and manage this. Thank you for having this video. This week's episode was produced by Tiff Lamb and me and edited by Colin Kish. Digital shorts by Ariana Longley. Camera work by Max Tussy and the TVO studio crew. Teleprompting by Christy Mloud. Production support from Jonathan Hallowell and TVO's digital media services team. Lorie Fuse, executive producer of digital. Vanessa Casease is vice president media. Thanks so much for listening.