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Hey all! It’s been a few months since I had a podcast episode for you but Christmas came early baby! And today I have an interview with the one and only Morgan Harper Nichols to share with you.
Morgan and I connected on instagram over—you guessed it—autism, and I have been blown away by how committed she is to representation of adult-diagnosed autism. It isn’t easy work, and she handles it with so much grace, empathy, and creativity. I have pointed so many people to her and her work as a great example of how autistic folks often are BURSTING with creativity and empathy (which kind of goes against the common stereotypes, but is the reality for so many autistic people).
Here’s a few things Morgan and I mentioned, plus some links to her work.
Book: What I Want to Talk About: How Autistic Special Interests Shape a Life by Pete Wharmby
More info on the Lost Generation of adult diagnosed autistic people
Unmasking Autism by Devon Price
Morgan’s newest book is Peace is a Practice
Lightly Edited transcript of D.L.’s conversation with Morgan Harper Nichols:
God is My Special Interest, the Podcast. Episode 3: Morgan Harper Nichols
DL: Okay, I say this every time, but I am so freaking and excited to talk to my guest today. Um, if you're new here, this is the God is my special interest podcast where I, D.L. just interview whoever I want to talk about autism and a connection to religion. And so, um, today's guest is just like a dream of mine and it's Morgan Harper Nichols.
You probably know her from her art, her Instagram, her social media, but there's so much more to you than that. And I feel like if people go to your website or if they look at your Wikipedia, it, you know, it's just gonna be a little jaw-dropping because you've been involved in so many different things.
The threads though are, um, deep empathy. Expression, creativity. And now also you have been doing some work around autism. But Morgan, I'm so happy you're here.
Morgan: Oh, I'm so glad to be here. I've really been looking forward to this. I think we first connected on Instagram, maybe, I don't remember all. Apps kind of run together sometimes, but yeah. I'm just such a fan of your work and then following along on Substack and the book, like, so this is a, a mutual excitement.
I'll just say that.
DL: yeah, I do believe the first Instagram message I ever sent you was about autism. So here we go. Now we're actually talking about it. And just for people who maybe aren't as familiar with you, do you wanna just go ahead real quick and just say who you are?
Morgan: Yes. My name is Morgan and I am primarily an artist. And a writer. I do a lot of things, but they, they all kind of fall into those buckets somehow, surprisingly. I just moved back to my home state of Georgia where I grew up, and I spend a lot of time at home really. Like I work from home now.
I'm a parent of a three year old and my husband's also my business partner, so we're just kind of like just at home a lot. And, yeah, that's, that's kind of. Just a little bit of a snapshot of my life. I'm really bad at talking about I'm really bad at like saying like the bio, like I never got my elevator pitch together.
Like if anybody wanted me to pitch them in the elevator, it would be a meandering of whatever I was doing that day.
DL: Yes.
Morgan: connected to my job, if you will,
DL: Well, it's funny cuz I don't know, I shouldn't even ask people this question I bet. Because like if somebody asks me to describe myself, like if I go on a podcast and they like, I panic,
DL: like, which part? Which part do you want? Do you want today's existential crisis? Do you want the book I just wrote?
Morgan: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Yes. I had a whole thing, I didn't even realize it this morning. I thought I was just writing a journal entry and then I got to the end of it and it was 7,000 words.
DL: What???
Morgan: That I wrote this morning,
DL: can you tell us more of that, please?
Morgan: 7,000 words. I was like, how long have I been sitting here? And I was like, why is my body so stiff?
So I woke up way too early this morning and I just had some ideas. And I decided to get them down on paper. I will not get into that today, but I'll say a short version of it is--and I've actually done this before, so I've never talked about this publicly because I don't know how to talk about it, but I feel like this is a safe space--
So I do this thing where I just like to challenge myself just to see how much I can sit in one spot and write. Okay, I get it, it's probably not healthy. So I've done this before. This was not a first time thing. I usually don't know what's happening until it's happening. Like this isn't like a oh, I wanna get my word count up every day and I sit down and challenge myself.
It's just sometimes it comes out all at once. So today I was writing about video game art. I know that is so random, but it's just I'm very interested in interactive games and how they inspire me creatively. So I just went on a little journey. I went there this morning, so yeah, how did I even start talking about that?
Oh yeah, you mentioned existential crises. So I got down to the end of it and I was like, I need to make a video game, which is something I thought about before, but I was like, that's not it. What, where am I gonna do that? So yes, I get that.
DL: I love that. Was this sparked by any particular video games? Because my kids have gotten a little into these like gorgeous art games, and I had no idea this was a whole thing.
Morgan: Yeah. And there's so many, that's the thing. It's like you could literally play 10 [00:05:00] games and there's 10 others that it might be similar. Uh, Sims is where it started. So Sims was for a while, a special interest of mine and it launched on my 14th birthday. Which I find worth noting for some reason and Facebook also launched on my 16th birthday, so I don't know what that's about.
But I do know Sim's launching on my 14th birthday--I just feel like I have a special connection to it, and I'm just very interested in this concept of simulating reality, which I'm pretty sure has to do with autism and just using Sims as a way of understanding how humans work together.
But I'm really intrigued by how those spaces are just room to kind of play more, I guess. And, it has enough of real life that it feels like it's connected to real life, but it's also a place to explore without judgment and with these little questions you can ask the friends and, and see where the conversation goes without, you know, obviously real-life consequences. Because I, I struggle a lot socially, and I remember when I first discovered Sims, you know, as a younger person, that was really, really cool to just have it and explore.
So yeah, I won't go into the whole 7,000 words of it, but yeah, it was really fun to explore that.
DL: I love that. And you are such like a prolific person. You’ve written multiple books. You do so much art. You, engage deeply on different social media platforms, but I think this is a really good look into your brain and, and the brain of autistic people. Which you know, sometimes I feel like I'm at the mercy of my brain and sometimes it feels like a gift.
Sometimes it feels like a crisis sometimes I'm like, where did all my creativity go? It's just such a fascinating place to be, but I, I'm happy that you were able to do that.
Morgan: thank you
DL: You mentioned the Sims coming out when you were 14, and you being drawn to that. And not always being great socially, and it kind of makes me want to ask you about that. You know, the whole point of this podcast on my substack is talking to late diagnosed autistic people.
And I wondered if even thinking about when you were 14 and really into the sims, like--I know most of us didn't have the language of autism, but how did you kind of think about yourself, and then how did you eventually get to the point where you did get diagnosed?
Morgan: Yes. Yes. It's interesting that I just finished this book--I think it's called What I Want to talk about, but I think it's by Pete Wharmby. And it's actually been very recently that I've realized this through the idea of special interest, that I've been learning more about the journey toward getting to my diagnosis because I really struggled for a long time feeling like there was something that was going on that I could get help for. So I always knew ever since I was a kid that I struggled with making friends and I struggled with sensory issues. I wouldn't have used that language, but I was very aware of bright lights, loud music footsteps in the hallway. I was always aware of all of those little things.
We had this old piano, and if it was out of tune, I just felt like I was hearing notes within notes. And it would literally give me headaches. So I knew all of that as a kid. Again, I had no language for it whatsoever, but I was very aware of it. I was very aware of textures and I was always escaping into my fantasy world and world building.
So by the time Sims came along, I was like, okay, game on. This is serious! Because before the Sims it was The American Girl Dolls which had a video game that was like, make your own theater production. And it was a one dimensional game with all of the original American girls and my sister and I, who's, who's also neurodivergent we would just, oh, we lost, who knows how much time we lost to that game.
I shouldn't use the word, but we spent way too much time on that game and overheating our poor computer trying to play it. So yeah, lots of the traits were all there. They were there all along, and it was in my teen years when my mom, actually mentioned that she thought I could be on the spectrum, but we went to the doctor and just didn't really get anywhere with that.
DL: On world building when I was a kid, I would get really lost into books. And it's funny because my parents didn't let us have video games. But also you're a little bit younger than me, so you were kind of probably right on that perfect trajectory.
Morgan: I was--I was homeschooled preacher's kid and yeah, my mom in particular--I feel like to this day she probably would say the same, she had very mixed feelings about video games. We definitely had to make a case for them being educational, so that's why American Girls was a great gateway because it was the books first, so it was like, hey, mom, like, you know, all these books that we read, well, here's how we can get more into life by like doing these historical reenactments. So there was definitely some convincing that had to take part in that. But yeah, I can relate a little bit on that.
DL: I love that. And so when you were a kid, your mom had some questions about neurodivergence, but they, you know, were missed. And I think we all know there's multiple reasons for that, right? And so you are part of what I'm also part of, which is the lost generation, right? Of people, most of them, you know, who were socialized as female, who were not caught.
You know there's all these things, right? We were called highly sensitive, we were gifted, we were all these things, but we were never diagnosed as autistic. And so, um, how did you come to this term for yourself later in life? What did that look like for you?
Morgan: Yes, yes. And yeah, absolutely agree everything you said, and that's been my experience. And for me it was age 27. I was just really struggling. Just felt like I couldn't keep up with basic things. I felt like I was just in every area of life, felt like I was falling behind. And I think 27 was pivotal because I heard that your brain develops at age 27 and it was such a moment of, of like, wow, I'm an adult now and I don't feel I'm an adult. And I feel like I had to rely on everybody in a different way for everything. I mean, again, socially was probably just like the biggest component because so me and Patrick, my husband, we've been together since college and he is a lot more social than I am and just, you know, kind of more able to just be intuitive and in the world than I felt like I could.
And I was just really struggling because I was just like yeah, I feel like I could just stay at home and just hang out with him and my sister and we're fine. Like, I don't need much more. But there's also, you know, when you're an artist, when you look a certain way, people just expect you to be social and expect you to want that.
I don't know, there's just so many different variations of that, and I couldn't put words to it, but I was like, there's something going on. I feel really stressed. I feel really overwhelmed all the time. So I asked my primary care doctor and he just dismissed me right away. And he was like, there's nothing wrong with you.
Like, you don't have a problem. He didn't even look up or make eye contact with me, like didn't even look up from his clipboard. So, I mean, you don't have to make eye contact, like I barely make eye contact. But he didn't even look up, and it was so absurd that he wouldn't even take a moment to contemplate it or even consider it. And then he literally said, he said, if you are on thespectrum, you know, you would have, you know, you know, he just kept saying like, you know, you know, and I'm like, you know what? Like, I guess that was just his way of saying, you don't look autistic. So sadly I took his word and I just assumed that he was right.
And it wasn't until three years later during the pandemic, I was on TikTok and I would already see on TikTok a lot of, um, just neurodivergent adjacent content, even though that's not a word that I would have necessarily used for myself at that time. I'm just interested in people, I'm interested in, you know, how other people move through the world. That’s very important to me already. And my sister has adhd, so she was diagnosed pretty young with adhd and she had some more, I guess you would say visible neurological things going on because she has Tourette syndrome, so she was diagnosed with Tourettes at I wanna say at nine. She might be able to fact check me on that.
I don't remember the exact year, but she's younger than me, so definitely a few years back. So all that to say I was familiar with neurodivergent language to a degree, but I took that one doctor's word and assumed that it didn't apply to me. And it wasn't until TikTok--I wish I could remember who the first people were--that I saw that I started to see people that kind of looked like me. And as adults were talking about autism and how they got diagnosed as an adult and had stories similar to mine.
And yeah, I went to a stories like, yeah, I went to a doctor and they dismissed me and I had to find a specialist that saw autistic adults. And it was through that that I was able to, um, that I was able to find a specialist in my area and I just Googled and it took me three separate tries, like the first time I ended up on some like a local autism center. And their website was just confusing, to be honest. Like, I signed up for something and then I was supposed to go and I didn’t. And then they messaged me and they were like you owe us a hundred dollars.
And I was like, what? I was like, what did I even sign up for? So I don't feel like it was a very autistic adult friendly website because it was more for children and, you know, people trying to, you know, help like with kids. So I guess the website was so confusing and I had to pay these people a hundred dollars and I never saw them, so that didn't work.
And then the second one, um, another therapist who had on their website that they saw autistic adults, but the first appointment just didn't go well. Like, I just didn't feel—I mean every time I kept bringing up autism, they just kept saying like, well, it's probably, have you considered this? Like, have you, and I'm like, yes, I have.
I know I have anxiety, but I'm like, it's more than that. And they just kept saying, well, it sounds like anxiety. I'm like, that's a part of it, but I'm telling you it's more than that. I know it is. So that didn't work. I felt really discouraged after that, but third time was a charm for me.
I was like, let me just, you know, go to that second page of Google and just try to find someone. And then I moved like the little, some kind of way, I don't remember if it was on Google Maps or like Google search page, but I just went a little bit outta my radius, so I ended up having to drive 45, 50 minutes for my appointment. But it was worth it because that specialist she changed my life.
And I still get emotional just thinking about her because she really saw me and got what I was trying to say the second we met and was like, yep, I understand this. I want to work with you. I want to help you. Like, let's make that happen. So that was a huge, I mean, as I literally take a deep breath right now, that was a huge difference with just having someone sit across from me and say, yep. Mm-hmm , and, and you know, I recognize the enormous privilege in that. I mean, the fact that I was able to go, I mean, it does cost money. I had to have transportation. I had to have childcare. You know, there's so much that had to go into--me being able to find that specialist and I'm just so grateful that I had it because that was the be that was beginning the journey of really truly getting the support that I needed and that I still need.
So yeah, that's, that's a bit of my journey.
DL: Whoa. There's so much to unpack in your story, and I just gotta be honest and say like, my first feeling is grief to hear about all the people who tried to discredit you because you weren't saying, I want an autism diagnosis. What you were saying is, nobody seems to understand how hard life is for me and. And just to have people discredit that is really heavy, and especially in these like establishment places. And then I do think it's beautiful, and I do think there's like people out there who really discredit like, oh, everybody's getting diagnosed on TikTok. It's like, well, no shit. When the doctors don't freaking listen to us. And I don't know what your whole story is that that led you to say, I need help. I need accommodations. I can't keep doing this, but my own, you know, my story is having sort of passive suicidal ideation, having anxiety to the point, you know, I couldn't really function and all these things.
And people just being like, oh, sorry, you just seem like a neurotic, anxious person. Please just keep going. Please just keep doing what you've been doing. You know? And I'm just like, this is not going to work. And TikTok was really helpful for me. I wondered, like, I don't always resonate with like the depictions of autism and I think that's another huge story, right. And it wasn't until social media allowed me to meet people and especially, I guess what we'd call high masking people. Because that's a part of my story.
Do you feel like you were good at masking? Do you feel like that's a part of your story?
Morgan: Oh my goodness. That is my entire life. So another book I just recently read was, Unmasking Autism by Devon Price. And yeah, that book just so perfectly lays it out. I feel like so much of my experience, it was constantly feeling like I was wearing another face, another identity on top of who I actually am, and it is even more complex also being Black.
Because being Black in white spaces often meant I am—and even so to this day—am so conscious of how I am perceived in those spaces and the times, and this goes back to childhood. The times where I was just slipping just a little bit. Were traumatic. Just getting picked at. Made fun of. Pointed at. Ostracized.
Oh, you are weird. Oh, you are different. And it was just too unbearable to let myself fully be seen in far too many settings, and I'm still unpacking that. I shouldn't even say, still unpacking that. I feel like I'm just starting to unpack that and just recognizing the sheer amount of preparation that I would do just to be able to fit in into certain spaces. I even remember back in my contemporary Christian music days, noticing that if there was a Black woman in a space doing something in those spaces, noticing how rare, not always, but how rare it typically was that she would've been allowed to have worn her natural hair and feeling pressured to get certain hairstyles that in Black salon culture can sometimes take 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hours just depending on what you're getting.
And from a sensory perspective, it was excruciatingly painful for me, but feeling like I needed to do that for my survival, my income--like to keep the roof over my head, not to thrive, just to survive, just to keep a roof over our heads and, and my husband was a tour manager at that time.
Our survival depends on us being able to move through these spaces and find work in these spaces. At the time for me it was these white evangelical spaces and just noticing how there were moments—so many, I've lost count--so many moments and my sister has similar stories. So we both play guitar and we would have on our guitar cases, we would have stickers of everything that we enjoyed. And for us it was just all of random special interests and things. And the amount of times we would play at churches and we would see some kind of leadership person walk by those guitar cases. And analyze every single sticker on there just looking for something controversial.
And I'm like, Nope. We've already thought about all that . Like we're already aware. You won't catch us slipping because. It was, and you know, when I really unpack all that, you know, that's spiritual trauma. Like it may sound like just stickers on a guitar case, but it's so much more than that and, and I feel like I'm just now starting to unpack a lot of that.
So, yeah, I feel like my work right now has been a lot around just like giving myself grace to have time to unpack that. You know, it's like, Hey, you don't have to figure all this out in the next year. It's like, this was your life for a very long time, and I feel like I'm really slowly but surely coming into who I actually am, you know, outside of having to feel like I'm constantly having to cover up who I am so that I can fit into certain groups.
DL: Oh my gosh. Again, your story just has so many layers of depth to it, and I'm really glad you said that you have a lot of trauma to process because you most definitely do. And, I just feel like there's not a lot of people who have put up with the amount of masking that you've had to do in order to survive, and I don't know if you ever feel like that, but even just listening to the snippets of your story, I'm just like . . . Not a lot of people have gone through what you've gone through and they won't know the cost to you and you had to learn to hide the cost. I mean, that's a part of masking is you have to learn to hide the cost of it.
And so even as you're talking, I was thinking about, you know, I'm not sure where I heard it first, maybe James Baldwin, but this idea of double consciousness and how Black people, especially in America, have to have this at all times. And I was like, what would you say, Morgan? Would you say you have to have a triple consciousness at all times because you're aware of being Black in these white spaces. And then also this sense of like, and I can't even talk about my sensory overload. I can't even ask for accommodations. I don't know if that's appropriate to.
Morgan: That, no, it absolutely is. And thank you for making that connection because I do connect with that from Baldwin and I'm like, yeah, you just gave me a lot to think about because that is absolutely what it is. It is having to have this triple, you know, earlier we were just talking about a multiverses, and I sometimes feel that way of. It's triple, but it's almost like it's not just triple. It's like this, I dunno how to explain it, but I'll just try to give some images to help explain it. So there was like who I had to be in white evangelical spaces, like that's just one group. But then there was also who I had to be in Black evangelical spaces as a Black singer-artist who had been in white evangelical spaces. And here's what that means.
I would go into Black evangelical spaces, a lot of my music knowledge, my music abilities, my ways of playing are more, look more like what happens in the white evangelical spaces. So when I would move into Black evangelical spaces I had to do like another leap.
It was like, okay, take what you learned in there and then bring it back over here. But then beneath that, there's like the sort of baseline masking that just happens regardless, you know, if I'm just hanging out with fam, you know, family or friends that who are Black. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but it's just like, it keeps context upon context.
I actually made a list not too long ago of all the different contexts that I've been in and have had to try to find my identity in that because, Growing up, my mom, uh, being a homeschooler educator, there were times where she would like teach in schools and, and different things like that.
And at one point she was teaching in a school that was predominantly, um, I would say upper class, mostly white European descent kids. Some of their parents were like expats here, and my sister and I were some of the few children of color in that environment. But that was totally different because that was like a secular upper class white environment and that it was a different kind of masking that happened there too, um, because it was there that I learned about like the difference between like genre fiction and like literary fiction. And I remember like bringing in, I want to say it was Nancy Drew or something. And the other kids saying, oh, that's not real literature.
And I'm like, I thought I was doing something here. Like bringing the something like a white blonde lady detective.
DL: Mm-hmm.
Morgan: But clearly Nancy's not allowed in here. So yeah, it's just so many layers of that. I kind of have a theory that I think that a lot of people--if not, maybe not everybody--but I think a lot of people have probably moved through different contexts and had to context switch in their life regardless of their ethnicity or cultural background.
However, I do believe that if you're autistic, it is heightened and it is to the point that, I mean, it takes you, it takes so much of your life to prepare, just to prepare to move through those spaces and then to move through them and then to have to recover when you get home. And then to have to try to spend time working through it years later?
So long way of saying it's, it's a lot of work.
DL: It is a lot of work and I, you know, am recently diagnosed autistic, so I feel like I'm still on this journey of trying to figure it out. And being an extremely religious person is a part of my own personal background. I was also a pastor's kid, also homeschooled, you know, probably for different reasons than why you were. My mom, you know, well now would describe herself as also an undiagnosed autistic person and, and so she was really terrified of public schools, got all into focus on the family bullshit, you know, and so to keep us, you know, safe from the world or whatever.
But when I started venturing out into the world is when I did start to develop anxiety. And I think that's a part of what it's like to be autistic, is our, we just process information differently in our brain. And now I kind of think of it as: my brain is inflamed. Like it's inflamed from trying to figure everything out, knowing I'm missing things, knowing I'm in this context, this is what is expected of me, and sometimes that goes against my gut, what I really wanna do, that creates stress in me.
Then I get anxious. Then I get, and I do think there's these stereotypes, right, of autistic people not having empathy and not. Social awareness. I'm like, just because we're not great socially does not mean we're not socially aware. I'm like, we're usually aware of what's expected of us, what's needed, how we are not matching up, how that's not matching up to our actual personal values, which is very important to autistic people. And so even as you're talking, I'm like, it's just layer upon, layer upon layer. And you know, that's why being undiagnosed or late diagnosed is really tragic is because we just have years, even decades of blaming ourselves for our anxiety, for our overwhelm, and not really giving ourselves grace and not having like hyper empathy for ourselves.
I don't know, becauseI just feel a lot of empathy when you talk about your life.
Morgan: Yeah, and I appreciate you for sharing that and that, that analogy you used of feeling like your brain is inflamed is so spot on. That is exactly what it's like and when I share all of that, like, to be honest, like I've shared things with you now that I haven't even shared yet, and a lot of it's because I'm still realizing it in real time.
Like I'm, I got diagnosed in February of 2021. And I started the journey of that diagnosis in 2020. But I'm still having moments--I would say every week--I have a moment where I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. And trying to, piece it together and also, like I was just saying before, not pressuring myself to try to make a cohesive narrative out of it.
I love Devon Price because they used the term in that book--the neurotypical gaze. So I've been really living with that phrase. It's a lot to unpack there because I'm like, wow, even the way that I process trauma, I kind of start like, how, how do you spin this into like a couple of bullet points that will make sense to everybody?
And I've just been really exploring, I'm like, maybe it won't. And I think that is some of the hardest work around being a public figure and being autistic and having adhd, like people really do expect cohesive answers from me I understand that I'm a communicator, I'm a writer. I was like, you know, I understand like communication, how it works, like getting ideas down into cohesive methodism, bullet points.
But also just trying to explain like, hey, it's not that simple for me. And not everything I say or write is gonna come out that way. Like I had an experience with my book Peace is a Practice, and I did what you're not supposed to do, and I was reading the one star reviews, actually, you know what, it was a two star review.
Um, and I was like, you could have just given me one star. I would've been fine. But they were complaining that the book essentially wasn't Christian enough for them. Like they were upset because I talked about Jesus being a peacemaker, but I didn't mention Satan. And according to them, and which I just thought that was so funny cuz I was just like, I remember growing up, like listening to Evangelical Christian music.
I thought that was a thing. Like just mention Jesus in the song and then like, if you didn't mention Jesus, that was the problem. So I was like, I thought I was in the clear because I was like, yeah, Jesus the peacemaker, I'm talking about peace. Like it felt very relevant and real. You know, writing along my happy little way.
No, that's not enough anymore. You must also write about Satan, so I missed that. And it was just so interesting. I mean, this review has like, highlights on it and they were just like going in on like [00:36:00] all the ways I missed the mark and it wasn't Christian enough, which, you know we could go on and on, but that's a whole other topic.
But what I gathered from that was, Wow. I don't know if I have ever been, if I've ever felt free to just sort of talk about faith in the way that it makes sense to me to talk about, because for me, a lot of the way that I talk about faith, at least in this current moment of my life, is very simple. And I talk about it in a way that I would talk about it if I were five years old, just being honest.
And I'm finding that a lot of people, especially a lot of Christians, have problems with that. And I think it's a lot of different reasons why I don't really blame the individuals as much as like, oh no, these are systems that you've been a part of and you've been taught that people talk about their faith in a certain way.
And I've noticed, I'm like, wow. For me, when I'm talking about art and making art, I'm talking about what I feel. God is speaking to me through the art. So it comes out in an artistic way, but then there's also this layer of like, it comes out in like a childlike way, but then to like share all of that with people who you think, okay, maybe we have some basis of a, of a common thing going on here, but then they're just like, no, that's not enough. You must do more. And if you're not doing more, then how dare you? And this shouldn't be on the shelves because X, Y, and Z. And it's like, wow. Okay. All right. And I read, I read all of that and. And as I read that review, I just had like a very specific thought in reading it.
I was like, I wonder if this person has ever interacted with an autistic adult talking about Jesus or faith or religion or anything. I wonder if they have, and because I was . . . I mean, I talk about autism in the beginning of the book. I'm like, this is reading. Like somebody who was expecting. You know, I still, again, I know I'm going a whole lot here about this one review, but I feel, but it was something, like Amazon showed you how many people find it helpful, and it was like, 10 people find this helpful, and I just think about those 10, 11 people every once in a while. I'm just like, I just wonder what their daily life is like.
Like who are they listening to? Who are they encountering? and I would hope that they diversified to put it nicely, because I'm like, we're gonna need more room in this world for people to kind of meander and ponder and unpack and, find ways, find language to communicate their experiences, including their experiences with God.
So, yeah, I don't know what that was an answer to or anything.
DL: think it was so good because I think you read that review and you were truly, genuinely curious about the person who wrote that review. It's like such a good picture for us as autistic people being like, oh, okay. Somebody's saying the unspoken part out loud.
Morgan: Yeah. Yeah.
DL: I am not Christian enough. I am not promoting, and here's the thing, okay, this is what I thought. I am totally fine with believing in God. I've been on this huge Faith shift, deconverting all of it the past year and getting an autism diagnosis was a huge part of that because it allowed me to see myself using religion, being hyper religious, you know, as my way of masing all that.
So, and if you're somebody who's paying attention to what's happening in America, you better have some weird feelings about Christians. You know what I'm saying? Like
Morgan: there's a lot to be unpacked.
DL: There's a lot to have some big feelings about. And so I'm like, I can believe in God, but Satan, I'm like, Satan is used by high control religions to other people, to demonize people, to set up the fundamentalist framework of there's evil in the world that must be defeated.
And so just the other day I told my husband like, I definitely don't believe in satan. I was just like, it was like in the middle of the night and I was like, I definitely don't believe
Morgan: you know, the, the thing about the thing about this, this person's review, I was just like, it is okay if you believe that. I was like, but if you know, if you believe you know these things and you're like, this is how it should be communicated, then why do you need me to say it again?
DL: Yeah.
Morgan: but it, but it goes back to what you said. It's a control thing because people want their literature to line up in a certain way so that they can use it to control people. And there's, some study that was done on this. I, I'd have to, I'd have to Google it to find it, but it actually talks about, um, and I think if anybody Googled it, they, they may be able to find it, the tools of white supremacy and one of them is the written word, and it talks about how the written word is used to control people because it's like, what's on here is what it is. And I'm like, yeah, that is, in a lot of ways I'm like, that is this person's frustration and, and this is true regardless of what their ethnicity or culture is like.
Whether they identify as white, whether they are white as not, because that impacts us all. That notion that we must have things written down in a certain way. And yeah, there's just, there's a lot to unpack there. And not gonna lie about a whole existential crisis around writing after I discovered that.
Because I was just like, what does this mean? Like, how do I continue to write with this knowledge? I feel like I'm still unpacking that. I'm still figuring out that I read something else. Um, Henry Lewis Gates is like a, I don't know what his official title is, maybe historian, I think, but he does like a lot of books and documentaries on different parts of Black history.
And I can't remember sometimes, I don't know if you ever had this, but sometimes I remember something, but I don't remember like what thread it came through. I'm like, did I hear. See it? Did I ? I'm like, yeah. Did I, what? I told it, did I read it? Like I, it loses this like file cabinet, like, I don't know, just like a little loose leaf paper floating around in my brain.
I'm like, I don't know where this came from, but he was talking about how African-American slaves used to refer to the Bible as the talking book, and it came from years of having been told by the master that the reason why I can enslave you or this, or this or that is because that's what the Bible says.
And they took it literally thinking the Bible was actually talking. Now who does that sound like? You know, the Bible talking. I mean, literally when I, when I heard about this, you know, this idea of, of the slaves taking that literally. The fact that they were told this is what the Bible says, this what the Bible says and then therefore calling it the talking book.
And I think that there was even recordings of them, of, of different slaves holding the Bible up to their ear to hear it talking because they had been told that. The Bible
DL: Mm mm mm-hmm.
Morgan: So. I just been thinking about that a lot. You know, don't know how to like make sense of it, but it's like, yeah, there's a lot to unpack even just words on the page. What words on page have been used to, to control people, to enslave people? Like it is a lot to unpack there, and, and I recognize how that can make people feel uncomfortable, but at the same time, it's like, it, it's not something we can ignore. Like we cannot ignore the impact that that has.
DL: Oh my gosh. I, I love that you just brought all this up. I'm in this Faith and Justice network and we were reading Mark Noll. He wrote this huge book on the Bible being like, America's book and how like the versification and everything is what the Bible says, and how that was, you know, primarily used to enslave people and to promote chattel slavery, right? How people should be enslaved their entire lives based off of their race. And America was really the only place that that took off based off of the Bible. Like that's a huge story that has to be reckoned with
Morgan: and it wasn't that long ago,
DL: no, it wasn't. And so for me, you know, being raised in white evangelism in this obsession with reading the Bible, memorizing it, taking the verses, using that to continue to oppress people, you know, mostly in my life time it's been, you know, lgbtqia plus people using the exact same framework of the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says you take these six verses outta context and you can do whatever you want to people without having to grapple with the dehumanization and exploitation of people. I've been really struggling, like, how do you be a Christian? And then it's fascinating to think about, well, how did Christianity come about, you know, in. Uh, marginalized groups and usually it's like they weren’t obsessed with specific verses. They were obsessed with the stories of the Bible, with the Exodus story, with the words of Jesus, with the parables, and it's like, Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Being obsessed with the story is really different than being obsessed with the verse that gives you permission to never engage ethically with what your life looks like. And so that's been a little helpful to me. But yes, you're totally in this world, Morgan, you've been in white evangelical spaces, you've been writing for them.
And this is my perception, I see you just making tons of room. I just have this vision of you with your elbows, just like making room for others.
Morgan: Oh my goodness, that that means so much. Thank you,
DL: You use art and you use color. I, you know, before I knew you were autistic, um, I bought some of your art because the colors were so, calming to me, like, and I'm not a calm person at all.
My brain always feels inflamed. And so I, I just like, I feel like this is a part of your work is, is you've always been making space for perspectives and I just, I just hope you do keep writing, but that just like me, where I'm on my journey, it's like I have to get in touch with myself more and more.
And the more I do that, the more it is threatening to people who have a vested interest in you know, upholding the status quo. Right. And so Christian Publishing is not my friend anymore and I don't know what to do about that. Um, we talked a little bit about what it's like to be a public person and be autistic.
Is there anything else kind of on your mind about that?
Morgan: Oh my goodness. Well, well, first off, I just have to say thank you for that affirmation that you just gave to me because I'm changing the name of my podcast in January and I'm calling it the Never Ending Room. So when you said like, I just see you creating this room, like, oh my goodness, that's exactly what I'm hoping for because that is, for me, that is what it's all about.
And yeah, just thinking. So I, I'm even when it comes to like my public work and how I can do that, that's, that's what I'm trying to do. It's like, how can I put things out there? That. I mean, I feel like a generic way of saying it is that make people feel seen, but it really does come back to that over and over and over again.
And I've been getting further away and it's, it's, when I say further away, they're not really drastic leaps. They're like little, little hop. Little hoppity hops , they're the landscape of life. Um, but I've been making these little jumps, these little moves away from sharing things, riding things that I kind of tie it up on a, on a, with a bow.
DL: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.
Morgan: the word grace shows up a lot in my work, but I've been challenging myself, like when I get ready to write grace to maybe not, like, maybe there's a way that, that the peace itself is about grace and I don't have to. Keep trying to like, Come back to those few words over and over and over again.
And that's not to say I'm not gonna use Grace, cuz it still shows up in plenty of my work. And where would I be without the word grace in my life? I don't know. So, um, but what I'm getting at, like an example is I shared a piece on TikTok about a month ago and I was like, I have no idea how this is gonna go.
And the piece took off and I was like, whoa, I didn't know that was gonna happen. But it was, it was a piece about two friends and they were getting ready to part ways and it was like a little comic strip that I did, and the person was really sad because they were, the person, number one was really sad because person number two didn't really seem like that sad that they were leaving.
So person number one goes home and is feeling really sad and really, Just bummed out. Cause we're like, oh my friend, like, I thought we were close and they don't even seem to care that I'm going away forever. And then person number two sends him a text message and was like, Hey. It was just in that moment that I realized that that was goodbye for real.
And I just had a hard time processing it. And that's how it ends. Um, like it's still sad because they didn't get their nice goodbye. And it's based on a true story. Like, I had a friend like that in college and I left thinking, oh my gosh, like, they don't even care. And then later on they sent me a Facebook message and they were like, no, I just realized it was, it was the last time we were gonna see each other for a long time.
And it was the last time I ever saw them. And that's like, yeah, that's kind of sad. But at the same time, it's, it is a real emotion that people live with and it's a, it's a small thing, but it's not a small thing. So I'm trying to create more room for that. I'm trying to create more room. Let's just open this up even more
It's like, I've already done that, but how can I just slowly but surely just create more space and say, Hey, like that tangled stuff that, that stuff that you don't even quite feel like it's a big enough of a deal to feel bad about it and you don't know how to address it, and because maybe there's nothing even to address, but you just want it to be named.
Do you want it to be seen? How can I do that? How can I go into that and hopefully, create in a way that encourages other people to create that way too. Um, to write more, to speak more, to create more without feeling that pressure that I've gotta sum all this up in a pretty marketable bow and to just trust that sometimes I'm talking to myself now, like sometimes, sometimes we will create things that that end up having the marketable bow, but a thousand other times we may not, and that's okay.
That's more than Okay. And I actually think it's needed in the world. And yeah. So that's, that's kind of what I've been going through.
DL: That's, I mean, that's such a good way to think about my own future. It's like just you don't have to end it in a marketable way because Yeah. Again, maybe this is just being autistic, right? But my brain does notice the patterns and it's like, oh, uh, this would make a book, this would make a good op-ed.
Morgan: these things are based on survival. You know, they're based on like, if it's your job or way you've earned income, like then in our current society. Like that is the So it's, yeah, it's, it's total. That's real. That's real. Yeah.
DL: It is real. And I'm just like,you've just done so much hard work in your life, uh, to, to make space for other people, but even. It was, you know, you had to do so much just to get diagnosed autistic, and now I told you this before we started recording, but like you being public about being late diagnosed autistic has had really amazing ripple effects.
And I don't even think, you know, like how important it's been to me and to so many other people. I will like tell people, like, you know, if they don't really believe me about my own autism or whatever, sometimes I'll be like, did you know Morgan Harper Nichols? And also I'm always like, if you are extremely into her work, you might need to think about neurodivergence.
Morgan: Yeah, there are so many neurodivergent things in my work. I'm just now realizing that.
DL: and it's like, and even you sometimes, like I think you've been open about it. It's just like all these different parts of you and you doing the hard work to be public. For people like us, we'd actually prefer to be private in many ways, but yet we also have this drive to connect with people and we connect by sharing our actual lived values, right?
And you are putting that into the world and seeing if people respond. And that's why I love your work. I think that's why, not just autistic people, but lots of people appreciate, um, vulnerability, like true vulnerability. And so I just wanna say thank you Morgan. You don't have to do a lot of this stuff publicly, and I know there's a cost and I just wanna say thank you.
It's been really impactful to me and to so many people. Um, yeah, so thanks for doing that work and for showing up.
Morgan: my goodness. And thank you for noticing, for recognizing that, for recognizing the cost of that, because it does take a lot. Um, but I, you know, just being a visual person, I kind of, and I think we talked about this a little bit, you know, before we started recording, I, I think a lot about the people. Um, and I think a lot about my guess it costs me, and it's also an enormous privilege that I was able to get diagnosed.
It's an enormous privilege that some kind of way through everything I was going through, I was able to put it together that, hey, if you start making stuff on an iPad like that could be fun. Post it online, see what happens. Like I see all that as a privilege and, and I see all of that. I'm like, I'm not saying everybody has to be an iPad Art creating artist, but I, what I'm saying is like, I want, I wanna live in a world where more people feel free to be themselves and free to explore the things that help them find peace in life.
And there's many times, like today I even shared something that, I mean, as I'm sharing it, I see a vision like as clear as day of an undiagnosed person sitting in an office. Everyone's getting ready to break for lunch and they realize that they didn't make plans with everybody, and they're all going off to lunch and they're sitting there eating lunch by themselves.
And I don't even know if that's a real story or not, but it's just like, It'll just like pop in my head as clear as day, and I just think about that when I'm sharing. I'm like, yeah, it is, it takes so much courage to not be withdrawn and not disappear, um, into the woods, uh, forever. But so it's those visuals, those visions that, that keep me coming back.
So I'm like, yeah, there's more people out there. Who are worthy of that, that love and [00:56:00] acceptance and freedom and, and healing and all those things, so, yeah.
DL: Oh my God, that makes me just wanna cry. Like I just wanna go away and cry and think about all the people out here. Right. And just what it's like to be human and just the experience of loneliness, wanting to isolate, wanting to retreat, and. Gathering your courage in deciding to share. Um, even though autistic people know the costs, we know the costs.
That's why we're freaking anxious, um, about it.
I could keep talking to you all day. I wanna be respectful of your time. But you know, you've already mentioned, right, you've, you've done music stuff in the past, you do art, um, you have written multiple books, and I haven't read your most recent book, is the one before it that I.
Just got really drawn into and the art and everything. So I'm like, I'm so excited. It's Peace is a Practice. Is that correct? I'm like, I wanna, I wanna learn about your embodied, uh, peace practices, so you know, I'm gonna be buying that or just telling Krispin to buy for me for Christmas. Um, where can people find you?
Morgan: Um, yeah. So I am Morgan Harper Nichols, pretty much everywhere on Instagram, TikTok, um, Pinterest, YouTube. And I have website, morganharpernichols.com and I try to have all my stuff on my website, like my books. I have a podcast, I have an app. I know that's a lot of stuff, but so I don't expect everybody to go find all the things.
But if you're just looking to check it out and see what's going on, you can go to morganharpernichols.com and I have all the links there. So yeah, that's where he could find me,
DL: love it. And so you said your podcast is coming back in January.
Morgan: Yes, yes. So the, the plan is January 1st. So
DL: Oh, wow.
Morgan: is a very special interest guided podcast. So I'm kind of taking, kind of taking a leap here. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. It's. It's a part of me kind of doing that thing. It's like, what kind podcast would you make if you weren't worried about its marketability and you're just like, I just want to make what I wanna make.
So that's what it is and, and I'm really excited about exploring that. So yeah.
DL: That is music to my ears. I'm doing a happy wiggle. I just feel like when we, when I see other people saying that exact thing, like, I'm just gonna do what I'm interested in. I don't know. I'm just like, ah. Oh,
Morgan: We need more of that. More of that,
DL: for the future. thank you so much for coming on Morgan. This has been a dream and a delight.
Morgan: Oh, I've so enjoyed this. And yeah, this cannot be the last time. I am so grateful for you and your work, and thanks for creating the space.
DL: Oh, thanks.[00:59:00]
Podcast: Interview with Morgan Harper Nichols!