The Autistic VOICE Project

Matt and Erin are wrapping up Season 1 of The Autistic VOICE Project this week — and after 48 episodes, they’re talking honestly about burnout, sustainability, community, and what it takes to keep showing up as Autistic people doing work they care about. We cover: Why we're taking a summer break and what autistic burnout actually looks like in real life Energy accounting, reducing barriers, an...

Matt, Erin, and friend of the show Hunter Hammersen are here this week talking about something a whole lot of Autistic people want and struggle with at the same time: friendship. Specifically, how do you make local, in-person friends when leaving the house already feels exhausting? Hunter shares her deeply Autistic, surprisingly effective friendship protocol involving spreadsheets, rules, recurrin...

Matt and Erin are back for another mailbag episode — and this one gets deeply personal. From losing an “anchor person” to navigating autistic grief, relationships, PDA parenting, and co-regulation, this episode explores what happens when the people who help hold our world together are suddenly gone or overwhelmed. It’s vulnerable, funny, heartbreaking, and very, very autistic. We cover: Why autist...

Matt, Erin, and guest Nyck Walsh are here this week — and this episode turns into a really good conversation about somatic therapy, autistic processing, nervous systems, sensory joy, and why neutrality can feel radical when your body has spent years stuck in survival mode. We talk about: Rocks, Nintendo buttons, foodgasms, hypervigilance, and the very real experience of trying to exist in a world...

This episode gets into perimenopause through an autistic lens—what it actually feels like, why it hits differently in autistic bodies, and how little real guidance exists. Matt, Erin, and Eleda talk through the biology, the lived experience, and the frustration of trying to make sense of something that affects so many people but still isn’t well understood—especially when you add autism into the m...

Matt, Erin, and Eleda get into special interests, collections, and what it means to have a space where Autistic joy isn’t hidden—it’s the whole point. This one’s about building community through the things we love, and why that matters more than most people realize. We cover: Turning a business into a place where people come to connect—not just buy things Why collections matter (and what happens t...

Matt and Erin are joined by Eleda Towle, an Autistic store owner whose lifelong focus on model horses turned into a business—and a gathering place for other Autistic people. This one moves the way Autistic conversations often do: tangents, deep dives, and a lot of “wait, that connects to this.” It’s about discovery, community, and what happens when people finally find their thing—and their people....

Matt, Erin, and Jamie Roberts are here this week—and we get into identity development for autistic teens, the pressure to turn yourself into something “useful,” and what it actually looks like to figure out who you are when the world keeps handing you scripts that don’t fit. It’s real, a little chaotic, and very recognizable. We cover: • Why identity gets tangled up with productivity, money, and “...

Matt, Erin, and guest Jamie Roberts sit down to talk about autistic teen girls—the ones who get missed, mislabeled, and pushed through systems that don’t fit. This is about what’s actually happening underneath the behaviors adults dismiss. Highlights: Why teen girls are overlooked in diagnosis—especially when they’re labeled with anxiety, depression, or “typical teen behavior” instead of being und...

This week, we’re talking about chaos—the real kind. The kind that shows up in your body, your routines, your relationships, and your nervous system. Matt and Erin break down what it actually means to be a bottom-up processor in a world that expects you to “just wing it,” and why autistic people aren’t overreacting to unpredictability—we’re responding to a lack of usable data. Highlights: Bottom-up...

Matt and Erin take this one straight on: why autism “awareness” looks the way it does—and who built it that way. This is about power, bad science, and what happens when non-autistic voices control the narrative. Highlights from this episode: • Why outdated theories (like “lack of theory of mind”) still shape diagnosis, services, and public understanding—and why they don’t actually hold up in real...

Small talk is weird. Especially when you’re autistic. This week, Matt, Erin, and returning guest Dr. Kade Sharp dig into why neurotypical small talk revolves around scripts like weather and sports, while autistic conversations often jump straight into deeper topics, shared interests, and joyful info-dumps. Highlights from this episode: Why small talk works as “social lubrication” for neurotypicals...

This week’s episode happened fast. Matt and Erin pulled in returning guest Dr. Kade Sharp to talk through a situation unfolding in real time—and why it matters far beyond one state. We talk about the sudden policy in Kansas invalidating driver’s licenses for many trans people, what that actually means in everyday life, and why community support and mutual aid matter right now. Highlights from the...

Matt and Erin flip the script this week — Erin takes the lead, and Matt talks about living as a PDAer. It’s direct. It’s personal. And yes, there are breadsticks. We’re talking about what PDA actually is (and isn’t), why “pathological demand avoidance” misses the point, and what changes when we reframe it as a persistent drive for autonomy. Highlights from this episode: Why “pathological” says mor...

Matt, Erin, and returning guest Kate McNulty are back — and this one moves from burnout to shame to safety, with stops at birds, clocks, and emotional support cheese. We’re talking about what happens when your spark goes out… and how to find it again without shaming yourself into motion. We cover: • How to rebuild momentum in burnout — from “skip a step” strategies to using curiosity as fuel • Wha...

Matt and Erin are joined this week by Kate McNulty, LCSW — therapist, teacher, late-identified Autistic human, and one of our own. We start with “special interests”… and end up square dancing, grinding coffee beans, and dismantling white supremacy. So. You know. A normal episode. We talk about: Kate’s late diagnosis at 60, the “lost generation,” and how stereotypes shaped by Rain Man left many of...

This week is a mailbag episode, and Erin and Matt take on two common questions from allistic listeners that come up constantly in real life. Both questions sound simple. Neither one is. Episode highlights: If ABA is harmful, does that mean all discipline or behaviorism is bad — and what discipline is actually for Why punishment fails to teach, and how it damages trust, learning, and regulation The...

This week, Matt and Erin slow things down and talk plainly about stress — what it actually does to autistic bodies, and why it hits so hard. From shutdowns and migraines to doomscrolling, snacks, and dogs who run bedtime, this is a lived-in conversation about surviving a loud world. We cover: Why autistic stress isn’t just “in your head,” including interoception, shutdown, overdrive, and burnout H...

This week’s episode is heavy. Matt and Erin slow things down to talk plainly about safety, community, and what it means to stay human when systems built on control and cruelty become more visible. This is a grounding conversation about fear, responsibility, and why autistic ways of seeing the world matter right now. We cover: What it feels like to live under threat — and why many white autistic pe...

Matt and Erin are back with returning guest Maisie Soetantyo for a deeper, wider conversation about what happens after diagnosis—inside families, across cultures, and over a lifetime. This episode shifts from systems to home, from protocol to relationship, and from “fixing” kids to protecting connection. We talk about parenting autistic kids without shame, why reward systems and compliance fall ap...

Matt and Erin are joined this week by longtime colleague and friend of the show, Maisie Soetantyo—an openly autistic, multiply neurodivergent advocate with decades inside the autism service system. This episode is a slow, honest unpacking of what it means to start inside ABA, believe you’re helping, and then realize the system itself is doing harm. We talk about visible “progress,” invisible traum...

This week, Matt and Erin are joined by Arielle Juliette—autistic creator, studio owner, and justice-sensitive human living very online in a very loud world. We talk about trauma, visibility, and what it actually costs autistic people to speak up right now. This is a wide-ranging, honest conversation about justice sensitivity, burnout, online harassment, and why “keeping the peace” so often means s...

Matt and Erin are back this week with returning guest Arielle of Dance Life Studio and Fitness, and the conversation goes exactly where Autistic conversations tend to go: movement, joy, systems that don’t fit us, and what actually helps people thrive. We talk about belly dance, autistic nervous systems, and why building a life that works for your body isn’t indulgent—it’s survival. In this episode...

Matt and Erin sit in that strange in-between space after Christmas and before New Year’s, where everyone’s supposed to feel hopeful but most of us are just tired. This episode is a grounded, funny, very Autistic conversation about why New Year’s expectations don’t work the way people think they do—and what actually does help. Highlights from the episode: • Why New Year’s resolutions rely on dopami...

Matt and Erin are back just before Christmas, talking honestly about why the holidays are often overwhelming instead of joyful for Autistic people. This episode names the stress, the sensory overload, and the impossible expectations—and offers realistic ways to get through it. Highlights of the episode: Why the holidays are a perfect storm of sensory overload, social pressure, and emotional burnou...