Episode 8. Sandhya Menon on being a changemaker and neurodivergent brown psychologist.
INTRO:
Anita:
I was just listening to your interview with Sandhya, which was so lovely to listen to. I know that you and Sandhya have met before because you translated her beautiful book, The Brain Forest, into Spanish.
Aileen:
Yes, and it's really a funny story because I was working with a transdisciplinary team, and this speech pathologist reached out to me and said, "Hey, do you have any resources for kids whose parents speak Spanish that I could use to, for them to understand about neurodivergency?" And I didn't, and even though I really loved The Brain Forest, I didn't like the translation from Google because it was missing the cultural component. I knew it wasn't gonna land the way that Sandhya was meaning to write it. So I reached out to Sandhya and said, like, "Hey, I don't want my community to miss out on this beautiful resource. What do you think if we translate this book to Spanish?" And she was like, "Yes, of course. It was something that I was doing with someone a long time ago, and let's get back together." So it was Sandhya, this person that she was already working with who's in Sydney, Claudia, uh, she's Mexican, and myself just working through the translation.
Anita:
Oh, beautiful. And so now that's published, is it? I think it's about to be published. Right. That's so important, though, your point about how a Google translate isn't enough to get the nuance to really interpret the meaning. You need something more than a word by word AI translation.
Aileen:
Yeah, I, I truly believe that it was missing the mark.
Anita:
There's so much in this conversation which was, is really kind of personal. I think a couple of things that really struck me was the sort of sense of how much effort it is to go against the norm, especially when we're from cultures that prioritize harmony, when we are standing up for ourselves against racism or people not thinking about culture, that it is so much effort and then there's the extra layer of neurodivergence for people who are neurodivergent as well. So it really is a lot of work and an extra load, isn't it?
Aileen:
Yeah, and, and how it adds up to the sense of unsafety. Mm. Or not being able to unmask because you're not safe enough being from a minority community and being a Black person or ...
Anita:
I think the masking question, and that's where you start the conversation, is, is so interesting as well, this kind of sense of where is it safe to be authentic or unmasked- and to what extent are we constantly adjusting to figure out what the level of safety is and how that is something going on for neurodivergent people, but what does it mean if you're a person of color? And- how is that less masking accepted by people around you? And it's actually quite confronting to hear you talk about your son, 'cause I have a neurodivergent son as well, but he's very petite and, and still pretty young. Uh, so I haven't really thought about it in that way that you and Sandhya talk about, about, like, being careful in the way that you express anger.
Aileen:
Well, thank you for bringing it up, because for me it was quite raw. I don't usually tend to be that vulnerable when I talk, um, especially in public. I felt safe enough with Sandhya to share that.
Anita:
I was just thinking about how, yeah, you give so much in the interviews in such a personal way, which I really love. You mentioned that thing about how you felt safe enough, and that reminded me of that idea that Sandhya talks about, which is that sometimes when you are doing that advocacy, it's something that has a greater impact and can be heard more from within a, a preexisting relationship. It's tricky because it can feel like, oh, does that mean I have to sort of hold on to my advocacy, to my voice, to, to my opinion for a really long time until people feel like I'm safe enough, and then I'm allowed to say what I think?
Aileen:
I guess the challenge for me is that when I hold on so much to what I believe in and what I feel, then the way that it comes out, it's so full of energy that it can be misunderstood as rage. So even if I have a relationship with that person, I'm not sure how much that relationship can hold all my emotional load in that moment.
Anita:
And then the focus can become on the emotion and the delivery rather than the actual message. Maybe what we're doing is saying these are the challenges. So what is it that you do when you're the person from the majority, when you're the person with power in the situation, and how do you make it easier for people to speak up? How do you make sure that you can listen even though you don't necessarily already know the person that well, that you can still hear the message? Or if you do know the person well and they're delivering it with a lot of energy, how can you still hear the message and not just focus on the delivery? Because there is no way of perfecting the message and the delivery.
Aileen:
We all play a part, isn't it?
Anita:
Yeah. It's not like we can just say whatever we want, however we want. But also that some idea that there's a perfect delivery of a challenge to the dominant ways of doing things is a way of avoiding listening to the message and a way of maintaining the status quo.
Aileen:
Well, I would love to hear what people got to say about this interview.
Anita:
Yeah, me too. You got a bio there for Sandhya?
Aileen:
The thing that I find most relevant about Sandhya is how, and I'll quote it from her bio, is that she believes that the best work happens in community and that the future gets brighter when we support and meet children with curiosity, compassion, and trust. So she's really focusing on training, speaking at conferences, and working with schools and services, though her bio talks about moving beyond the therapy room to embed neuro-affirming practices. That last, she's an advocate for autistic-led education, training, and research, and collaborate with large organizations to transform policies and introduce models. Thanks, Sandhya, for all the work you do.
INTERVIEW
Aileen:
I wanna start this way, and I talked to Anita yesterday and I said, like, "I really need to tell Sandhya this story."
Sandhya:
Go for it. I love it.
Aileen:
So this is my recollection. The first time that I heard about you, you were at the Yellow Ladybugs Conference. And it was an online event, and you were in a panel, and the sense that I was having about the conversation was how, you know, teaching children ways of masking was outdated and we, we shouldn't support children to feed into these neurotypical ways of being. And this is my take, maybe this is not what you said, but you came on board and you made a comment, something along the lines of, "Well, sometimes it's not safe." Not to mask, especially when there's an intersection or not only about, um, neurodivergency, but race and gender. And there was like a full-on silence. This is my recollection, and I was like, "Oh my God, who is this woman? Mic drop moment. And I googled you because I was like, wow, that was so brave. That was my take of what happened. Maybe you can, if you remember the moment, you can tell me what, what was your recollection. But in my head I was like, "That was so brave." And what I loved about it, on top of everything, is that you said it with your very sweet energy, right? That it looks like you're not angry.
Sandhya:
I remember this moment. So I think the panel was in 2023, talking about behaviorism and social skills, and I guess I really struggle with, you know, sometimes there are rules. Like I see with the affirming paradigm, we have new rules. Like, oh, don't teach children to mask, and I always question the rules, like that's my type. But also coming from like a collectivist family, right? Sometimes what I want doesn't quite fly. It's what my family wants. Or thinking about like privilege and how that comes up. So something I really challenge is when we create rules, sometimes it's actually just a Western standard, and we have to question that. And sometimes the people who can question that are people from non-Western backgrounds who can go, "Actually, that doesn't quite fit with my way of being," and we need to challenge it, I suppose. So yes, I do remember that moment. Was a very unpopular view back then, but now it's starting to gain traction thankfully. Aileen:
Yes. That's how it felt. It felt very unpopular, and very brave.
Sandhya:
Thank you. It's very scary to do that.
Aileen:
Were you scared?
Sandhya:
I am so terrified, especially when, you know, still- I think when I speak against the norm and I challenge the way that people think, even though that's the whole point of the paradigm, it's scary to stand by yourself, to be the only one to say, "I don't agree." Especially if you want to be known as, like, an advocate, right? You have to, like, stand for the people and stand for the masses. And, you know, I'm Southeast Asian, my people are very quiet. They will cheer me on from very far away. They're like, "Good job. I'm going to sit here." So when I'm in the thick of it, it, it can feel very lonely and isolating.
Aileen:
How do you deal with loneliness in this place where when you're being brave?
Sandhya:
Oh, good question. Wow. Oh my gosh.
Aileen:
We're not gonna maybe get an answer today, but I think ... yeah, do you have any idea?
Sandhya:
I think sometimes this is what social media has given me, is to know that I can be lonely in a space of work or in a family, but I am not alone. I actually can connect with other people. Maybe they're not in my organization or even in the same state or country, but I'm not alone in saying that this is important. And that has given me that courage to continue to live by that values, because before I could connect with other people, I honestly thought that I was being a problem, you know, the, the squeaky wheel. But, um, especially from a ADHD perspective, constantly the too mucher. Whereas now I connect with other people, I go, "Okay, no, this, this stuff is important. I'm supported to continue to speak out in that." I wrote a very, very unpopular post once just because I was angry and upset and I felt really strongly, and I just went, "Nobody's going to like this, but I have to say it." And it was the scariest thing, and I actually said, I'm like, "I'm not interested in your personal opinion. I have to say this." T post was called Why I'm Uncomfortable With The Word Neurospicy. And it was, like, everybody loves the whole like, "Oh my God, neurospicy, so cute, sparkly." And I just went, "I don't like it. I don't like using that. Spicy has a different meaning to me." And it was so scary 'cause I felt like I was taking away something from people that they really enjoyed. I remember my heart pounding as I pressed post. I'm like, "I just have, have to do this, and maybe I'm gonna get cancelled," right? Which is a real fear. But that post, so many people started learning as a result of that. It's one of my most popular posts, as scary as it is. It's got, like, 5,000 likes or something. But what people do, what people did with that is they saved it, right? And the next time someone else used neurospicy, they said, "Maybe read this opinion." And from there, it just started growing. Like, people was like, "I'm not using this anymore." Um, which was terrifying for me. I'm so scared to go against the norm. But I think right now, like, people are trying to do the right thing with including non-Western perspectives in their way of being. Most people in the social justice space are. So I think the more that we, like, push that, the more we make people uncomfortable, the less lonely it becomes.
Aileen:
And it's so interesting how you- talk about this because my take is, like, Sandhya, is also scared. Like, you're doing this not because you're not scared anymore or because you feel like, "Well, I'm set up as a psychologist. I don't need anyone's approval."
Sandhya:
Something that I've reflected on, something that makes it easier is, you know, yes, do it when scared. So I gave a speech earlier this year that challenged a room full of white people on power and privilege, and I'm like, "Man... I don't wanna do this." I went to therapy. I was like, "I don't wanna do this. I have to do this. I don't wanna do it," right? I was so dysregulated in order to show up for 30 minutes for one day of the week, I had to do nothing for two weeks, just breathe through it. And something that I really kind of sat with after is the privilege in being able to do that, only because I think people now have a certain level of safety with me, where we have a preexisting relationship. I think that gives me privilege to be able to challenge some of those other privileges. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't have a preexisting relationship. I don't think anyone would have learnt from me if I just kind of came in unknown. So I think providing relational safety is part of the picture as well. And it's coming back to that, right, to connections.
Aileen:
I was actually gonna talk about your blog post because you closed the blog, and you said, "It is a privilege to learn about racism rather than live through it."
Sandhya:
Where I come from, we just call race as it is. Like, we're very upfront and direct about race discrimination, if I'm being honest. You know? Like, people will tell me to my face, and I will know exactly why, whereas what's happening in here is it's a lot more hidden. So, you know, you don't get the callback, or they'll say, "Oh, we don't see colour," but you have these decisions made about you based on your skin colour. They just can't say that. Never got callbacks until I started changing my name, right? Instead of Sandhya, I would say Sandy. I would change the way I would speak. So I mean, this is not a Singaporean accent, right? This is an Australian accent because I couldn't get anywhere with my accent. So I practiced and I practiced and I practiced how to sound like those people so I could just get where I wanted to go, right? Most people don't think about that. I have to worry about how I sound like or, you know, what I look like, what I smell like, you know?
Aileen:
How has your identity shaped your professional practice?
Sandhya:
I think probably the most important thing to know about me is how I have dinner. If I think about my childhood, the first thing that comes to mind is dinner time. So my family is from a multigenerational, like, family home. So when we sit down to dinner, maybe 15 people are called to dinner. We'll sit around, you know, I'll sit with my grandmother and my grandfather. I'll sit with my cousins and my aunties and uncles and, you know, that... It's just that dynamic of we share meals together, we bond, and I guess life is more than just the nuclear family. So even though I might live with my nuclear family, I spent so much of my time at my multigenerational family house, and that's so much a part of who I am, right? Like this collectivist, like, loves being surrounded by people. And people don't understand that when, you know, they're looking at, like, the autistic lens going, "Oh, you must like a lot of time by yourself," or, "I hate people coming over." I'm like, "I love people coming over." A quiet house is very upsetting for me, you know? I, like, I yearn for people to knock on my door because that's, that's how I grew up. It's just people come, they're like, "I made this. Here you go." They'll stay for a cup of tea, and it's not something you even have to ask for. It's just part of a network. So I think that's very much how I show up. I try to create community wherever I go, to have these little, I guess, pods of people where it's okay to ask for help. We are so isolated these days. Asking for help's a really big kind of barrier that we have to overcome. Like, it's okay to ask for help and to be dependent on someone. So that's something that I encourage in my practice, to learn to be interdependent. To learn, you know, if you have the energy to, how to ferociously show up for the people that you love. Like when, so two of my aunties, their kids were born around the same time. One couldn't breastfeed, and so what the other one did was she pumped and sent, like, her breast milk from Singapore to Malaysia, you know? Without question. She's like, "That's just such an easy thing for me to do." That's how I like to show up, so I guess having that background. Another thing that, that shows up, I don't know if you've ever watched this. So what I do enjoy is watching cartoon shows, and I still love cartoons. One of my favourite cartoons was Animaniacs. I don't think a lot of people know it. (sings the theme song). And it was the most ADHD show I've ever seen.
Aileen:
Oh, of course, yes. I used to watch this show it was in Spanish. Yeah. That's so funny.
Sandhya:
So I felt very seen by that show, because it was, like, very smart. You know, they learnt about the, like, countries around the world, but al- also they're so weird and kooky and zany, and I feel like that's my personality. Like, I never used to walk, I would bounce. I'm like, "wee." Bouncing is so much fun. And I think watching shows like that where they were just free to be themselves and be a little bit silly. I kind of retain that at the heart of my practice, to know that play is important even as adults, and that I can be a little whimsical. So I get caught up in having fun these days, which is the best thing.
Aileen:
Sandhya, you started to use your name again after trying to do Sandy.
Sandhya:
Oh, yeah. Good question. I think that's really recent. Maybe in the past two or three years. So I've been here 18 years, and only in the past two or three years I started to go by my actual name.
Aileen:
What happened?
Sandhya:
When I first got here, being brown, being from Singapore just felt wrong, like, in this country. Like, I couldn't make any friends if I was too ethnic. So I had to constantly kind of contort and transform myself into something that was acceptable, something that was palatable, something that could “pass”. So I would say, "my name's Sandhya, but you can call me Sandy." You know, that's one of the ways that I transformed. I transformed the way I spoke. And when I was diagnosed Autistic, I think that was the first time I really started to understand the concept of masking, of hiding who you are, and I found this community that talked about unmasking. Who's your true self? And I started asking myself those questions. You know, who is that Animaniacs-loving, like, wild, you know, person that is really underneath all this performative professionalism? And I started kind of going, "Okay. Well, what if I did this? What if I did that? What if I stopped making my name short?" And sometimes people would still do that. Like, they would say I'd say, "My name is Sandhya," they'd say, "Can I call you something else?" And to start with, I would say, "Yes, you can call me Sandy." So it was a process, and then over time the answer became, "Actually, no, you can't. I will teach you to pronounce my name." So if I present, I'm like, "this is how you pronounce my name. This is a visual representation of how you can say that." But I am a lot more adamant about trying not to shrink myself for someone else's comfort. You know, we learned to pronounce Daenerys Targaryen just like that, right? Like, you can say Sandhya Menon. So I think, um, it's my small way of pushing back, of saying, "You know, it's, it's okay to be Indian." And I think, like, this becomes more salient when you're a parent, right? What are you passing down to your children? And already my five-year-old, sometimes she goes, "I don't like this colour, this skin colour. I like Daddy's." And Daddy's Caucasian. And I'm like, it starts so early. I need to show up and say I'm so proud of this, right? And children, right, they hold a mirror to you and make you go, you know, "Do you really accept this or are you just pretending?" They're very much good reflections of who you are and what you're trying to go through. So I said, "Okay, you know, I'm actually really proud." So I retained my last name. I talked to them about how my name has meaning, and their names have meaning, too, and what's the meaning around that. So Sandhya means twilight, so I talk about how for me the connection to my name is a connection to the world, to the, those quiet moments of reflection, and it really gives me, I guess, presence as to who am I? What do I have to offer? I find often those meanings at twilight. Yeah, so, you know, having conversations that have cultural knowledge and ways of being and passing that on.
Aileen:
Thank you for sharing that. And same with you, my kids are my mirror. But I found myself hitting a wall with a real fear of raising Black boys in Australia. And I think this is maybe it strikes us because we're told that Australia's multicultural and accepts everyone, but still we have visceral ways that our body knows that that is not the case, and they have different standards that they get held to, and we have to find our way through that safely. But it's different, and nobody's talking about it. And it compounds when you add sprinkles of neurodivergency there.
Sandhya:
100%. Yeah, so this is why I really push for having intersectional voices. You know, if I look at my son, my, my son has Dutch genes, which means he's going to be very tall. He's got brown skin. You know, so being tall and big and brown and having emotional regulation challenges, that's not going to end well. So I'm very strict as a parent when I come across this kind of stuff, you know, and I'm working on some of those regulation issues because I know what the future holds, and I know I only have them for a short period of time. So yes, I do my best to show up in a compassionate way, in a way that teaches them skills - but in a way that really emphasises we've got to take accountability. We've got to prepare. We've got to recognise, you know, anger, what it can do, and what is a helpful way of showing anger, and what are unhelpful ways, right? And having that be really important, front and centre in our development at this time so that we can keep them safe when they're 16 and at the train station.
Aileen:
Yeah. I found myself having this conversation with my youngest actually, about how do you….not thinking about how they're gonna approach police officers, but in terms of, you know, if you're walking on the street, just make eye contact, smile. You know, like a, an agreement of peace. I'm like, "I don't think this is right, but I'm too scared." It's coming from that fear and how we keep safe our children when there's all these dimensions of their identity.
How do you think we're doing as a profession supporting [culturally diverse clients]?
Sandhya:
Horribly. So horribly, if I can be really, really frank, which I will be, without permission. We talk a lot about cultural competence, right? As one of our core competencies. But in my training, so I train clinicians for autism assessments, I have this module where we go through, what does cultural competence look like? What are some of the considerations that you need to take into account when you're asking your standard questions? And so many of them go, "I've never thought about that." I go, "What do you mean?" You know? Because we get, we get towards that like the individual Western way, and then we just get this layer of, "Well, be culturally competent," and nobody knows what that looks like until I illuminate, "For example, when you're asking this question, here are some different ways that someone, for example, from an Asian background might respond." So a common example I give them is, you know, how saving face shows up in, in therapy, right? So they might not want to tell you all the problems because they're trying to save face for their client, so they're going to minimise. Someone might dismiss them and say, "Oh, there's no problems."
Aileen:
We have this new code of conduct. There's not a template, there's not a process. And it doesn't sound like a priority. And to me, that's another way how racism shows up professionally. How this is not important, how we're like the et cetera, culture and diversity and identity, etc.
Sandhya:
I think you're right in that because on paper they're saying cultural competence is important But what's actually happening is people are glossing over that, going, "Yeah, cool, got it." And I think that's one of the most arrogant things that our profession can do... to go, "Yes, I'm competent in all the cultures, thank you very much." You know? I think we, we need more as a collective.
Aileen:
And even this humility to, to where we, each of us are, 'cause even me as a migrant, as a woman of colour, the thing that I've been working on the last two years is to debunk my own internalized racism. Because the fact that I'm a woman of colour, I'm a migrant, doesn't mean that I'm not racist myself. So we're all in the same boat or, or we're all on the same journey, different points of the journey.
Sandhya:
I love hearing you say that because I think that confession is so powerful of, you know, I'm not immune. Like I'm, I've grown up with all these biases myself, and that's part of cultural safety is that you acknowledge your bias. You start to unpack it. You start to go, how does that show up in the therapy room? Th- there's a fundamental problem with the way that we are trained, in that we are trained to kind of be the doctor, to know everything. And to move from having that role to I don't need to know everything, I just need to be really aware of how dynamics are playing out. What do power dynamics look like? We don't talk enough about power, power and privilege playing out in the therapy room. I mean, we talk a little bit from the client-therapist point of view, but not about, you know, socioeconomic status or gender identity or, like, mental health, you know, and how we bring that into the room too.
Aileen:
What would be the next logic thing that needs to happen to get into the Utopia of we're all cultural competent?
Sandhya:
I've actually been dreaming of this. I would like almost for us to have a template, just because I like to compartmentalize things. Of here are the common themes that we see in therapy, and here's how it shows up different from, like, from my perspective. So I want to hear, you know, from a panel of, you know, Asian, Southeast Asian, Venezuelan, African, Chinese, Vietnamese, to all kind of go, "Oh, this is what it's like for us." And to have more than one, right? Ideally. Because we can't represent everyone, so you just go, "Oh, well I've learned from one Venezuelan psychologist, so now I know everyone." I think it's a start to what we can do, but we need time and resources to do something like that. And because it's not prioritised, we don't get that. You know, I come from that paradigm of- everyone will do well if they can. Clinicians are also very time poor. So how can we make it easier for people to understand that? I think it comes back to having that reflexive practice into, like, I don't know it all, ask attitude. And unpacking that need to be in charge to go, "How does that land for you? Let's do it together." Having that collaborative process really take….and sharing power. It's a big one, isn't it? And I wanna talk about that power piece, actually. Sometimes we think we can't share power because the client is paying us. I think that's a huge part of why we think we need to have all the answers. And just to, I guess, unpack what success or, like, successful therapy looks like still means doing it with, because we're prioritising the client at the centre of their own journey. We're just helping facilitate that. So we're being paid to facilitate the process through our training, through our expertise. But that doesn't mean we need to know everything.
Aileen:
Throughout your work what I see it's that it comes out so natural. And I'm not saying that, you know, you haven't studied a lot , you know? But there's a lot of you there that, um, it's impactful because people connect with you.
Sandhya:
So I mean, that's just how I've chosen to show up. If I think about, you know, coming back to culture and coming back to who I am, I was the person who needed to see a psychologist and never did because, first of all, in my culture you don't see the psychologist unless you're crazy. And the fact that I was sad wasn't enough. They're just like, "Get over it." So I had to go to the library to read about it. But the fact that even if I did see someone, or even if I was brought in, if that person sat me down and was too clinical with me and had that barrier, I would never have engaged. I'm just like, "I hate you. Please go away." Right? You can't do anything for me. And if I think about how I would have responded, I'm like, "Who is that helping? Who is that mask actually helping?" So when I became a psychologist and I had my own practice, I went, "How can I break down the barrier to get someone who maybe has that same perception of seeing a psychologist to, first of all, get psychological support, but two, breaking down the barrier of it's okay to see a psychologist," right? So when I show up on social media, when I'm relatable, when I show that I'm understanding, it makes people think and have that connection to go, "Maybe I might see her." And, you know, if someone who's flicking from I will never see a psychologist to I trust this person to help me with my family, that's huge. That is really thinking about barriers and accessibility, and I guess that's how I choose to think of my profession and my responsibility as part of this profession.