Valerie Gilpeer and Emily Grodin, I HAVE BEEN BURIED UNDER YEARS OF DUST: A Memoir of Autism and Hope

[1:36]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com, and follow me on Instagram zibbyowens. Emily Grodin and Valerie Gilpierre are coauthors of I Have Been Buried Under Years of A Memoir of Autism and Hope. Emily details the challenges she experienced as a nonverbal autistic child and how a miraculous breakthrough in her ability to communicate changed her life. A minimal speaker with autism who learned how to communicate at the age of 25, Emily found her true voice in writing poetry. Her work has been published in Solstice Literary Magazine and the White Rose Literary Magazine, a publication of Pi Theta Kappa Honor Society. The same organization named her the first recipient of its award excellence in 2022 for her academic accomplishment and her poetry. Emily advocates for herself and members of her community in an effort to misspell the misconceptions and non acceptance of those with autism. She was honored by the Learning Rights Law Center in October 2021 and recognized the same year by both the California legislature and the Los Angeles City Council for her contributions to the community. Emily is a summa cum laude graduate of Los Angeles Valley College and is currently a senior at Cal State University Northridge where she is pursuing a BA in creative writing. Emily is also studying script writing and is hoping that her debut book of poetry will be published in the very near future. Her mother, Valerie Gilpierre, coauthored the book. Welcome. So excited to be here with Valerie and Emily. I already read your bios for I have been buried under years of dust, a memoir of autism and hope. This is an incredible story. I couldn't believe it. It's really incredible. Valerie, why don't you kick us off and explain what happened? And then, Emily, you can

[4:02]Emily Grodin: chime in or just tell us how you feel about it. Okay. Well, this is so interesting because Emily had had a lifetime of difficulty in communication. And we had basically been tried all kinds of speech therapy and all kinds of things. And we went on a trip to Ireland. And I start there because it's kind of the of the genesis of the story, I guess, that we started we went to Ireland, with a group of other individuals. And after we had been on this trip, we were on a plane coming back and, Emily had a meltdown. She has autism and apparently she was having difficulty on the airplane because there was really nothing to engage her. And after months and months and months of working with somebody, got off the plane after the meltdown, all kinds of trauma on the airplane, get off, sit down and Emily sits down and she types out, I have been buried under years of dust and now I have so much to say. So that was the beginning. Now this is the beginning of the communication that she started that has turned out to have changed her life and to change our lives as well. It of course comes after twenty five years of speech therapy and intensive therapies of all kind and attempts to engage Emily in all ways that we could possibly do. But this was really the huge breakthrough, it was magical. It was, And the funny thing is, is that the trip to Ireland, one of the things we wanted to do is we wanted to kiss the Blarney Stone, which of course, lore has it that you kiss the Blarney Stone and you are conferred with the gift of gab. Well, the Blarney Stone was not accessible that day because there are tourists there. And it's quite crazy to do it anyway because you have to kinda lean back and people hold their feet. So I said to her, Emily, just kiss the castle. Kiss the castle. And I have this great photo of her leaning over and kissing the castle. And that was the magic. That was the magic. Oh my gosh. So Emily, who seems to be a little tired this morning, she can tell a lot also. She has a lot to say about this breakthrough and and, what it meant in her life as well. So Yeah. Tell me tell me about that period of of time and what it felt like to be able to

[6:24]Zibby Owens: connect and communicate in such a new way. Got me. So Emily is typing, and then it voice translates.

[6:33]Valerie Gilpeer: First, thank

[6:36]Zibby Owens: you. Aw. You're welcome.

[6:39]Valerie Gilpeer: Our having ice. I am going to play a little thing.

[6:56]Zibby Owens: So she said, I'm gonna play a little game. To

[7:01]Valerie Gilpeer: tell you about the first thank you for having us. I am going to play a little something I wrote to tell you about the book.

[7:14]Zibby Owens: Perfect.

[7:16]Emily Grodin: The memoir is about me and my parents' journey navigating autism in a world that was not built for autistic people. It is about resilience. It's about trial and error. The book is very personal as it is filled with our experiences spanning my entire life, the good and the bad. And yet, I think it is an incredibly familiar story to so many. That is really what motivated us to share our own story. We knew that countless others had lived or would someday live similar experiences of autism, communication challenges, and building a meaningful life amidst the circumstances. My poetry was added to the book as a way of offering a glimpse into the intimate details of sensory challenges, social acceptance, and living as a minimally speaking person.

[8:05]Zibby Owens: Wow. Emily, that's beautiful. Thank you. And it's really powerful watching you type your thoughts, getting access to what you're thinking, this amazing technology that enables you to communicate. Valerie, how does it feel? I know you're used to it by now, but hearing Emily talk about the book in this way. Well, it's yeah. It's not just you know, it's been the book was published in 2021.

[8:33]Emily Grodin: And so over the years, initially, you know, my interest in in the book was really to share with people the incredible power of communication, essentially, and that one should never give up. I mean, Emily was 25 years old when she started to communicate in this way. And since then, what has happened is that it has opened up avenues for her in her life that were unimaginable. I mean, she told us initially she wanted to go to college. We initiate we arranged that. We she started going to community college. She's now at CSUN. She's became this extraordinary, poet and writer. So many things changed in her life. And every day, Emily writes something else more beautiful. I mean, she has this incredible knack, for writing poetry. We just got back from Europe, and today she she wrote out a beautiful poem about being away and coming back and what that's what's that like to return from foreign lands. And it's just it's been an amazing it never she never ceases to amaze us because every day is a new day of revelations. Every day is a new day where we learn something more about her, more about who she is, what she wants and what she wants from life, which was previously really unknown to us. We had no way of really knowing except for the basics of, yes, I want maybe want a cookie or I want this or that or basic needs, I would say. And so what changed for us was getting to know who our daughter is. You know, really being introduced to her at 25. I know that sounds odd because we were so intimately involved with everything about her, everything about her life and providing the best life we could for her. But knowing what she wants, what a person wants and their inner thoughts and feelings is a whole new experience, which I think is hard for people to understand except for the community that we live in. In our community, you know, this opportunity that comes with communication for the first time, it changes everyone's or one's one's life. And we want people to know about this technology and about the ability to do this because we want other people to have this joy to experience for themselves and to get to know their children.

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[13:31]Zibby Owens: So, Emily and Valerie, do you think that all autistic individuals have this same capacity for creativity and thought and everything, and it's a function of communication mostly? And with the correct technology, the the not knowing people is going to be soon a thing of the past.

[13:57]Emily Grodin: What do you think? What do you think, Emmy?

[14:00]Valerie Gilpeer: I think everyone is creative. They just need the proper tools and an extra lending hand to get to where they want to be.

[14:09]Zibby Owens: So true. So so true.

[14:13]Emily Grodin: Yeah. I think that that Emily's particular level of creativity is maybe not where everyone will be, but I certainly think that the the communication tool to enhance the level of communication that people have is what we think that this methodology can assist with incredibly, in my opinion. You know, everybody's got their own talent, if you will, and the level of talent varies from person to person. But I communication is just so important. I mean, how I changed her life, in friendships and in in education and access to the world. I mean, it's still a challenge because, know, it's still a challenge. It's still a world that doesn't completely accept this methodology, but still making inroads.

[14:59]Zibby Owens: That's wonderful. And how has the book changed both of your lives?

[15:04]Emily Grodin: Or or or or has it? Maybe it's Well, it has. I mean, absolutely. I mean, it it it has introduced Emily. There were so many things that Emily is now able to do. I mean, she's now a senior at, you know, a four year university. You know, she's a lead in a movie that's being written by another individual who's on the spectrum. She has these incredible friendships with people who are also typers. It's just enhanced her life in ways that we never would have expected. And it's really, really opened her world completely.

[15:39]Valerie Gilpeer: What do you think, sweetie? It has definitely opened so many doors, and it is always nice to hear that my story has inspired other families to never give up and fight for their loved ones just like my mom did for me.

[15:55]Zibby Owens: So nice.

[15:58]Emily Grodin: Valerie, that must feel so good. It does. I mean, you know, Emily's level of gratitude that's been expressed has been remarkable. You know, you always wonder what your child would say about you if they could talk or what they would say to their psychiatrist about you. But she's had such a level of gratitude for everything that we've done for her. And so happy, you know, to be in the place that she's in. And she lets us know that all the time. And it's really good. It's nice to know that the hard work paid off for all of us, because it's been a lot of hard work. I mean, Emily was diagnosed when she was two years and years of speech therapy didn't get us where we needed to be. And then we had this, she had this breakthrough. So it's been life changing. For us, I talked about what it's done for Emily, but also it's made our lives so much richer because we know who she is. And we talk to Emily and feel like we can get a response and she's honest about it. And she's remarkable observer of life. She's perceptive. She understands people. She understands us. She knows when we're upset. She knows how to comfort us. There's just, it's a whole range of things which have happened as a result of this level of communication. So it's been very exciting. It's like we all have a new life together. So we've just been having a great time since this all happened. It was 2016 that it happened. So it's now been nine years. So, you know, we just continue to to to really bask in these incredible benefits that have that have come our way very miraculously. Miraculously in some ways, and that some ways you have to say is really is the function of the payoff of a lot of hard work, but not giving up, which I think is the key here is that, you know, it keeping at it and keeping on it and finding ways to best help, as Emmy says, your loved one, I think is really the key. So if someone is listening and they have

[17:57]Zibby Owens: someone they love who is autistic or they are an educator for those with autism or just want to help, how do they get access to this technology? What can what can they do that you did? How can this be replicated?

[18:13]Emily Grodin: Well, I don't know. I think the thing is you need to find a provider who can, is is good. For, let me say, I don't know if it could be replicated. I think that there are different methods of communication that utilize the technology. There's here locally, Darlene Hansen in Los Angeles area was the person who we connected with, somebody I knew professionally and then later personally with Emily. She's a speech therapist who is very much an advocate for alternative forms of communication, which is really what this is. There's a place in Virginia, I think it's called, it's in Virginia called Speech to Communicate, S2C, S2C I think is what it's called. And then there's also another methodology that has been utilized that is the SOMA method. She's in Texas and she does something called Rapid Prompt. So there's different people and there's different ways. Some parents have come up with their own ways of simply sitting with their children and using the computers. Technology, and one of Emily's good friends started typing just because her mom sat with her and started working with her and not being afraid. Now, sometimes for some individuals, there's some motor issues that are involved with being able to actually touch the keys. But for those who don't have the motor issues involved with it, there's different ways out there. I just would, I think people can Google alternative forms of communication and they will come up with all kinds of stuff either on Google or on Facebook. And There's all kinds of

[19:47]Zibby Owens: of course they have to read your book. I have been buried under years of dust. Valerie, Emily, this has been so inspiring. The book was absolutely beautiful. Your poems at the end are absolutely beautiful, and I'm inspired. I mean, you are, I'm sure, inspiring countless people, and your dedication to creativity and how simple it is. Just, you know, everyone's creative, and you just need the right tools and a helping hand. I mean, that's it right there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Zibby. Thank you, Emily. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.