S2E20: Unlocking Ryan | Talk Tracks

For most of his life, Ryan was treated as if he couldn’t understand the world around him. Unable to speak reliably due to apraxia, he spent years in special education classrooms where his intelligence was not honored. But his mother Mary always believed there was more inside. At age 23, Ryan began communicating through spelling and everything changed. Finally the thoughts and insights that had been trapped inside him began to emerge: his deep spirituality, his love of music, and even experiences of shared consciousness and telepathy. In this episode, Ryan and Mary share their remarkable journey from silence to communication, and Ryan reveals what life is really like for nonspeakers who have always been aware, listening, and waiting to be heard. Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call—subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.supercast.com. http://thetelepathytapes.supercast.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ky Dickens?

  Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Talk Tracks. Today, you're going to meet Mary and Ryan. Ryan has autism, is non-speaking, and also has apraxia. Like many of the families featured on this show, it's been quite an adventure. And they realized that Ryan was telepathic long before the Telepathy Tapes came out. While in the studio, Ryan and his mom requested to do some telepathy tests, so we did film some, and those will be posted on the Telepathy Tapes YouTube page, as well as on our Supercast. Before filming this episode, we sent Ryan a lot of questions from our listeners, and he answered many of those questions over the course of a few weeks. And he'll be sharing those answers with us today in the studio. He's in and out because he found our couch in the front room to be very comfortable. So without further ado, we welcome Ryan and Mary to the studio.

• 0:49Ky Dickens?

  Hi, everyone. I'm Kai Dickens, and I'm thrilled to welcome you to The Talk Tracks. In this series, we'll dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truths from the Telepathy Tapes. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long.

• 1:16Speaker 01

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• 1:43Speaker 02

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• 2:45Ky Dickens?

  Why don't you introduce yourself? Like, who you are, who your son is, who's in your family, where you live?

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Okay. So I'm Mary Heller, and I have three kids. I raised them in Sebastopol on a farm. They ate off the gardens, drank raw goat milk, so we lived out on a farm. Ryan was my oldest. He's 27 now. He has two little sisters, 22 and about to be 22 and 24 in college. When Ryan was diagnosed, I just was one of those parents who dropped everything on the planet and just was on a mission to try to help him out. And it was scary back then, because they would be like, "If you can keep them engaged every waking second, they might be cured by the time they're five." So I would be like feeling guilty if I stopped to brush my teeth almost. But then we chased around all the biomedical and all the options trying to help him,

• 3:35Speaker 03

  and nothing really worked out that well. But, and so then he went to, he started out in regular ed and quickly got put into special ed, which there wasn't very good services. We were out in the country. And so he went to a really nice school, Oak Hill School, which was a non-public school for mostly autistic people. He quickly got put in the life skills class, which is basically the kids who they've determined they just really aren't teachable, and so let's teach them just basic life skills. And there he stayed. All the way through 22, graduated during the pandemic. He was considered one of the most difficult kids at the school, most loved, you know, but but just very, very, the apraxia was very big and his agitation was very great.

• 4:21Ky Dickens?

  For someone just joining who've never heard about apraxia, can you explain, just summarize what apraxia is?

• 4:25Speaker 03

  So, apraxia is a mind-body disconnect where your your motor system, your body is not working with you. So, your mind is really pretty much a normal mind who's absorbing information, hearing it, wanting to put out a response or do an action. And then you, your mind tells your body to do it and your body does something completely different. So, for example, if Ryan wants to say, pass me the fork, he might say, nothing, or he might say, I want water. So, and and similarly with the body. And then sensory issues were very overwhelming for him, too. So, anyway, and then at around 12, I think, I said, you know, I'm gonna give up.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  If if there's some miracle that's gonna come on the scene, I'm gonna hear about it. And so that's when I kind of gave up on chasing every rainbow and, you know, biomedically or therapeutically. And and I did. I did give up at that point, but I kept asking for a typing goal on his IEP. Because I'm like, he could be one of those kids that might be able to communicate himself on, at some point. So, I just want that typing goal and I always fought for that typing goal. And I remember, and I told Ryan the story, when he was 12, at an IEP, I was with, the school psychologist was there, and I said, I really want to keep that typing goal on. And the and the school psychologist was like, well, why? And I said, well, because what if, you know, someday, some of these autistic kids are

• 5:50Speaker 03

  able to communicate and then they can communicate fully with through typing? And I'd like to keep giving him access to that in case he could find his his communication that way. And the school psychologist turned to me and said, Mrs. Heller, if he had any, you know, if he had any of the kind of level of ability that you're discussing, we would have discovered it by now. And I just gave up that day. I just felt like a deluded. You know, okay, I'm just a deluded parent, I'll just drop it, you know, but I didn't drop the spelling goal, but that was the day my heart kind of sunk, like, stop trying, you know?

• 6:26Ky Dickens?

  Well, and it's had to be really, I mean, even right now, you're feeling really emotional from it.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't think I had a dry eye in any IEP ever, I mean, you have a table of people sitting around telling you, telling you that your kid's IQ, you know, your kid's like has less skills than an infant.

• 6:40Ky Dickens?

  It's like they take hope away.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  And they take hope away and they do these tests that that just show that, you know, and and I knew that Ryan had so much more in him, but apraxia is tricky, so just when I'd be like, you know, this guy is so freaking smart, he would do, his apraxia would make him do something like, I don't know, put something metal in the microwave, or, you know, something funky, and then I'd be like, oh, I'm, maybe I'm just wrong, maybe I'm just hopeful, so it's a very, it's a very deceptive thing, apraxia, so anyway, at, when he was 23, um, a friend of mine sent me a book called, um, Underestimated, An Autism Miracle, and it was about a boy who seemed very much like Ryan, who learned to completely

• 7:25Speaker 03

  communicate and his intelligence and and he was unlocked, and I read the book and I I was just like, I gotta try this, I mean, this book, I'd read books in the past, but it all, they always made it seem like, to me, I read them as, this was one miracle mother who just was like, did something unreplicable.

• 7:44Ky Dickens?

  Right.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  And, um, I, you know, I didn't realize, and one miracle kid, like, I just thought these were one offs, this book was like, this is all of our guys, they can all do this, you know, and and the boy was just around Ryan's age and the whole thing, I just really related to it, so I'm like, we have to make an appointment with that therapist before we're never gonna get to see her again, and so, oh, and I, and I, I called his dad and asked his dad to read the book, and then his dad called me crying. And so I don't want to get my hopes up again. What are you doing to me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, you know what? Um, we owe it to him to give him the chance. He can't bring himself there. We don't have to have any expectations, but we owe it to him to, to put the opportunity in front of him. So we made an appointment with that spelling practitioner.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  We went down to their office and we saw that day that his intelligence was there.

• 8:35Ky Dickens?

  For people, again, just joining, spelling is a way to communicate by typing, pointing to letters, which is a gross motor system.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Right. So what it does is it just bypasses the speech pathway altogether. That, you know, these kids, they've been hammering away at the speech pathway forever. And with Ryan, he has unreliable speech and, and limited speech. So, um, this bypasses that kind of broken or damaged pathway. And you literally learn to, um, communicate by laying down a new pathway by pointing at letters like this. You're moving your shoulder. So you lay down your speech pathway through your gross motor system. And, um, it was just wild because the first day we walked in, the woman walked right over, spoke to him, not me. Spoke in an adult voice, you know, "Hey, Ryan, it's so great to meet you. I know how intelligent you are. You don't have to prove anything." You know, gave him a little, he wrote a blog about it, actually.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  And then we went in and he started spelling. And, um, we were behind the two of them and he, he was doing, he was really like into it, you know? And he was pointing to the letters and stuff. But the moment when I got it was, um, she said, "Hey, Ryan, who, who did we fight in the American Revolution?" And that was not in the story she was reading him. And so I'm like this, like life skills class, no, you know? And luckily she's ignoring me. And he says, "Magic dragons," as he's spelling, E-N-G-L-A-N-D.

• 10:04Ky Dickens?

  So he's saying magic dragons but spelling England.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  And he's spelling England. And I just, I just got the whole thing at that moment. I just, I just started crying. His dad started crying. And then anyway, so I saw it, like he's, he is in there. He's trapped in there. His mouth is not working for him.

• 10:27Ky Dickens?

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• 11:12Ky Dickens?

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• 11:42Speaker 03

  So we did like a four day intensive, and then they were really great about showing me how to go home and work with him. So then I went home, and we sat at the dining room table for an hour, or no, like a half an hour, every day, and did our spelling lessons. And he went through all the procedures until he got to open. And it was the biggest miracle a mother could ever dream. I mean, I got to know him at 23 years old. And you know, you think, well, you know your kid. Yeah, I did. I knew his heart, but I really didn't know him.

• 12:13Ky Dickens?

  What were some of the things that he started saying or spelling about when he was open?

• 12:17Speaker 03

  One of the first few things he told me was that he had a deep relationship with God. I didn't know that. I knew he liked to go to church, but I thought maybe he just liked the ritual of it.

• 12:27Ky Dickens?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  You know, this consistency of it. He has a deep relationship with God. One of the fun things was hearing him use different family members' expressions. Like, "Hecka, yeah, hecka, yes." Like, that's his dad, you know? Or an expression I would use. So for the first months when he was open, it was just like, "Oh, my God, Ryan said this," or, you know? Um, and, uh, but anyway, so then we, I, this is what I learned about him. He's very serious and very deep and very intellectual. And his language is very intellectual. And so I started asking him. Also, he knew all this stuff that we were spelling about, and he'd never been educated. And so I asked him, "How are you, how do you know all this? How do you know all this math? How do you know?"

• 13:12Speaker 03

  And he couldn't show that he knew one plus one equal two to the school. Yeah. And he said, "Well, I study at night." And I was like, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I've only ever seen you watching, like, The Wiggles or Muppets from Space." Like, you know, and, um, but anyway, I mean, not to slip into telepathy, but...

• 13:31Ky Dickens?

  No, go, go.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Um, I guess he said he learned at the conscious realms. He's, he's studied everything. So, and he is educated. He went right into college, having been uneducated, and is an A student at college.

• 13:44Ky Dickens?

  He knew stuff that you didn't know, that you couldn't understand.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  I didn't know how he knew, anything that he knew. The first time it really, really hit me, I mean, it all hit me, but one time I was doing a lesson with him, and the question was like, and I'm gonna botch the details, but the question was like, um, "Who won the long-distance running in Africa gold medal in 1984?"

• 14:06Ky Dickens?

  Did you know the answer?

• 14:07Speaker 03

  No, I didn't know the answer. And it was an African name this long. And he spelled the whole thing out. So I Googled it, and it was exactly right. And then I called his dad, who's the only sports watcher in the family. And I'm like, "Did you ever tell Ryan about that?" And he's like, "No, but that's the right answer." And that's when I was starting to be like... Is there anything he doesn't know? How does he have this information? Oh, he's a healer. I mean, um, he has told me, and he does it to me, but he has told me that he feels called to heal every, anyone that he's with. That he, he heal, he heals them. Um, I, I think there's a lot more gifts he hasn't even told me yet. It sounds so silly, and I always thought I was so silly. That's why all this telepathy tape stuff is so confirming for me.

• 14:51Ky Dickens?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  When I was nine, I had a very strong, like, dream that wasn't a dream, and I woke up. So I always knew he was coming.

• 15:00Ky Dickens?

  What happened?

• 15:01Speaker 03

  Okay, so I was like nine, and I had this experience when I was asleep. It was in this deep, jutted topography of like, it reminds me of like the Marin Headlands. You know, sage-covered hills and mist and fog all around. Kids were milling about, running around, there was cloaked people, but, you know, like, people in like hemp cloaks or whatever. And I had a deep love for this little blonde kid, and he was like, I don't want to do this. And I was like, it's already been decided, we're doing this.

• 15:30Ky Dickens?

  And he was saying, I don't want it.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, he was like, I don't want to do this, you know, and I was like, it's, there's, there's no getting out. We're doing this. And the, it, the, the message I got was he was gonna get lost. Right, and so I, and so I, I woke up from it, and I'm just sitting there, and I'm like, what was that intense love? I've never felt that kind of love, and all of a sudden it hit me, I was nine or eight. I was like, oh my God, I just felt mother love, like, I felt the love of a mother. And he knows about the dream, he has talked to me about it, but anyway, even-

• 16:06Ky Dickens?

  What has he said about it?

• 16:07Speaker 03

  He wrote a poem about my dream, and then said that, that, that gentle cloak-covered beings. And I'm like, I never- Told you that detail. And so I asked him and he's like, yeah, like he was like, yes, I do remember that visitation. And it helped me. It really helped me because I knew that there was some inevitability to this that we had. It was like a soul pact that we had made that we were going to walk through this journey together.

• 16:35Ky Dickens?

  And when did you first maybe share the story about the fire? Like, when did you first know that maybe he's able to tap in?

• 16:42Speaker 03

  Oh, I knew way before that.

• 16:43Ky Dickens?

  Okay. So when were, what were the first signs that maybe he had a much more expansive awareness than you did?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. Well, I mean, I always sort of knew, like, when I was 40, I had an unplanned and very welcome pregnancy. And I was, you know, tiny back then. And maybe when I was just a few weeks pregnant, he just kept rubbing my tummy and saying, baby, baby. And I'm like, oh, don't be silly, Ryan. And then sure enough, I found out like a month later that I was having my daughter. And so little things like that, I would, or I couldn't hide anything from him. Or, you know, so we would joke that he was psychic. But, um, and then, but when I started spelling with him, after every spelling session, I would go down the back home to the driveway and talk to my, my husband and be like, I don't know what's going on. He's reading, we're reading

• 17:32Speaker 03

  each other's mind. He's reading my mind and I reading his mind. And, um, and that's not to say that the spell, it's not with the spell. I mean, he spells stuff I've never even dreamt of, you know, but, but something was happening where I could, a whole sentence would pop in my head. And then he would spell it or, you know, and it wasn't from me. Like, so I just started noticing this, this. That's why I was so blown away when telepathy tapes came out. I mean, I just sat in my room and just, just listened to all of it. Cause I was like, this is exactly what we're living. I didn't know about all the other stuff.

• 18:03Ky Dickens?

  Had you heard anyone else say that?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  Oh, everyone. And then what would happen was like, you know, the Speller webpages, you know, like a new parent would come on and be like, hey, I'm pretty sure like my kid's reading my mind, or I'm reading his mind, or, you know, and then a million new parents would be like, same, same. And then the moderator would come on and be like, listen, we don't talk about this here, you know, we're gonna have to shut, shut this down. So. I would tell my girlfriends and stuff, it's not just me, it's all these other moms, I'm not making this up. So I was very aware, I was like, I don't know what it means, but we have it.

• 18:35Ky Dickens?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  And.

• 18:37Ky Dickens?

  Did you think of testing it, or did you do that after the telepathy tapes?

• 18:41Speaker 03

  After the telepathy tapes, I never thought of testing it. In fact, it's something I didn't want, in a way, like the spelling, because I want to know, you know, I want to know that, I don't want to, I don't want him to spell something I'm thinking, but it doesn't feel like that, it just feels like, it's not that, because he's saying stuff I would never say, he has his own voice, but, no, I never really did, it was just, I just knew we had it.

• 19:01Ky Dickens?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  And, and, um, I didn't really just spend a lot of time thinking about, oh, what else can you do?

• 19:07Ky Dickens?

  Right.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  You know, it's just something we were experiencing, and it was mind-blowing enough. Now I take it like, it's kind of just like, uh, nothing, it's just like another, like he put it, it's just like another sense that he has. And, um, and how he puts it is, we share a consciousness.

• 19:22Ky Dickens?

  Mm.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  And so, actually, my spelling went a little wonky when I was trying to, I was trying to break the channel, they call it the thought channel, you know, because you want to, break the thought channels, because you don't want to interfere with his thought process when he's,

• 19:35Ky Dickens?

  Right.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  And then he finally said to me, Mom, that's like asking me not to hear. It's almost like, if he wants to tap into my mind occasionally, he will, if he needs, I think of it like training wheels.

• 19:46Ky Dickens?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  Like, oh, okay, so you want to warm up, you're going to tap into my mind a little bit, maybe, and I'm not sure that's how it is, but that's sort of how he explains it. But then he just goes off, and I'm like, whoa, I didn't see that coming.

• 19:56Ky Dickens?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  So sometimes it's just almost like a confidence boost.

• 19:59Ky Dickens?

  Yep.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  To keep our shared confidence, and then, and then he's just off and running.

• 20:02Ky Dickens?

  Yeah.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  So I don't trip on it anymore at all, I just don't worry about it.

• 20:05Ky Dickens?

  I forgot what we were doing with one parent, uh, there was a neuroscientist, not Dr. Hennessy Powell, someone else, who was doing a telepathy test, and then, we found that if the, like, the mom was looking at the board, he could get it right, but then we had her look away, and then he couldn't, but then we were like, just look at it for the first letter. And then when she looked at the first letter of what she was thinking, and then looked away, he could do it. So it was like a training wheels.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:28Ky Dickens?

  It was like, okay, this makes me feel safe, I can get my motor going with, with like, whatever's happening.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  It's all co-regulation.

• 20:34Ky Dickens?

  Yeah.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  The whole thing is co-regulation, and that's why I think it's been, um, you know, they cast light upon it, as being, whoa, whoa, whatever, because, well, why, why won't we put the board down? All of a sudden, you can't do it. It's, it, it's, it's co-regulation, and, um,

• 20:51Speaker 03

  There's a huge relationship of trust that makes it possible.

• 20:56Ky Dickens?

  Yeah, I think we're trying to, people are trying to understand spelling in a way that's so ableist in a way.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:02Ky Dickens?

  And not considering the whole expansive scape of how it could be working and no one's asking the right questions, at least not yet. I mean, now I think they are.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  You know, I'm starting to realize this whole entire autism thing is, everything is viewed through such ableist eyes that we're really doing them a disservice. Like, I'll just give you one quick example that, and at some point I did want to mention something to you that I really want to get out to the world.

• 21:24Ky Dickens?

  Okay.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Um, but, you know, for instance, when Ryan li- needs to listen, he'll, he'll look away from me. And he's like, that's so I can really hear you because or else, he sees, he sees all these colors coming out of his eyes. It just gets too much that the synesthesia mixes the colors with the sound, so he'll turn away. So what happens when you're talking to somebody and they turn away and are looking away? You think they're not listening, you think they don't understand you, you think they're checked out. And then with our ableist mind, we say, oh, this person doesn't comprehend, oh, probably diminished IQ, diminished capacity, and this is how it happened, that all these intelligent kids are in a system where everyone believes they're unintelligent. It's all because we're seeing everything through ableist neurotypical viewpoint.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  That's my message I'm really trying to get out to people.

• 22:11Ky Dickens?

  I think it's really important.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:13Ky Dickens?

  I think in a second, just for people, like Ryan is lying on our couch out there to feel safe and kind of regulate. Then we'll bring him in and go through some of the questions that listeners sent in. But I guess in the meantime, we can give him a little bit more time. Do you want to tell the fire story? Because I think that one's so interesting.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Okay, so Ryan lived, um, I lived in the big house and then Ryan lived down the driveway in his little bungalow. Me and my partner went out for a bike ride. Ryan was leaving when we left, was going off to his spelling club at, at the junior college.

• 22:40Ky Dickens?

  With, uh, Lindsay?

• 22:41Speaker 03

  With, no, with Erica, who's his associate. He likes to call his SLS people associates. So with his associate, they were going off to get coffee and then go to the, um, go to the spelling club, which is Ryan's favorite day. So we got back from the bike ride, I don't know, an hour or two later, and Ryan and Erica were standing outside his bungalow and the fire truck and fireman was there. And so I was like, what happened? And Erica's like, "Well," and the fireman was like, "Everything's fine now, everything's fine." "Oh, and this was the highest, this was a high, high fire alert day in Sebastopol. Like, they were gonna turn off electricity and stuff like that." So Erica said, "Mary, I'm sorry, but Ryan just really demanded I go home.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  He just, he said, 'Go home,' and the way he said it, I just, I just complied. And so we came home, and we came inside, and he went right to his room, and I smelled this really noxious smell, and I traced it to the kitchen, it's just a little bungalow. I traced it to the kitchen, and I opened underneath the sink, and there was all this black smoke poured out, and it was, and it was sparking and catching on fire, so I called 911. So, there was those power strips, and it had been cracked, and it was plugged under, I don't know, to plug the disposal in or something, and it was catching fire. And so, of course, in my mind, I was like, "Oh, this is a coincidence," but I just didn't

• 24:04Speaker 03

  say anything, you know, so they left and went off to finish their day at the college, and we put in a new power strip. And I got the notes back from the group spelling at the college that day, and Ryan had, first sense was Ryan spelling to his friends, "Hey, guys, I saved my bungalow today. My grandma came to me and told me to get home right away, and when I got there, the bungalow was starting on fire."

• 24:29Ky Dickens?

  Wow.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  And so, that made me so happy, because my mom had died fairly recently, and me, her, and Ryan were extremely close, and it just made me feel so good to know that she was around.

• 24:43Ky Dickens?

  It's such a beautiful story, because this has come up a few times, right, where I think there's that question of, is there psychic ability, is there telepathy, or is there help from ancestors and loved ones? I think it's probably a mix of everything, from what I'm gathering.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, what he told me, he's, because I did ask him about that, and he said, "I feel, I feel souls all the time, I feel them." Because I said, "Do soul, do people from the dead communicate with you?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "Do you see them?" He said, "No, I more just feel them." He said, "But with grandma, she whispers to me." And I said, "What does she whisper to you?" And he said, "And, oh, and then he said, 'And she sings me songs of perpetual devotion.'" So Grandma's

• 25:31Ky Dickens?

  What a sweet

• 25:32Speaker 03

  I know

• 25:33Ky Dickens?

  What a sweet assurance for you

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm so, you know, this has been the huge gift to me. I was a little neurotic worry wart before all this. Now I'm like, I'm not afraid to go to the other side. I know all our loved ones are around us. I just feel so much more at peace. Having the whole big picture make better sense.

• 25:53Ky Dickens?

  We got a question from a mother who has a newly spelling son. Come in, I think just yesterday, and we get this question a lot where she said, "My son will spell just fine with the CRP or the SLP or whoever's working, the associate. But she's having a very hard time spelling with her son herself. And could you just talk to that mother? Like, is that common? Why do you think it happens? Do you have any advice?"

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Okay. So, so common.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  And so I'll just spit out all the things that I know about it. And it's happened with me. I mean, Ryan and I were fluent. We were two little peas in a pod. For, and then once I, once I start getting other CRPs for him and other spellers, he, he's, he stopped. There was a point where he stopped really spelling robustly with me. And so there's a whole bunch of things going on. One is, first of all, there's apraxia. And I, I call apraxia like opposite world. The more you want something, the more that a praxic body is going to come in and try to sabotage you. And so one thing Ryan had told me, and I think we need to know about all of our kids, don't believe for a minute that they don't want to spell with you. They want to spell with you more than anybody in the world.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  And so one, they could have gotten into a loop where they just pushed you away. One time, Ryan wasn't spelling with me, I mean, for a period of time. And so we went to one of the practitioners who he spells extremely eloquently open with. And I asked You know, what, how can I help? What am I doing wrong? Like, how, why aren't we spelling anymore? And, um, he was sweet, because he hates to hurt my feelings. So he was like, "I guess it's time for the hard conversation." Is that what he spelled? And he said, "Mom, you need to take care of your own regulation." So I took that very seriously. I started going to hypnotherapy. Um, I started taking the time to, to make a lot of changes to, because, you know, as moms are, they're like, "Forget me, I'm just gonna go take care of everybody else."

• 27:49Speaker 03

  You know, but I was like, "Okay, isn't this interesting? I'm being forced to do self-care, so that I can go back to being with my son and helping my son." So I started doing a lot of the self-care. But no matter what I did, he was still saying it. And then recently, I really went deeper. I, I just went deeper with, um, my versions of spirituality, the things that I do for, to, to, to, um, for my own peace and spirituality. I did a lot of meditation, hypnotherapy, and I was feeling it. Like, okay, I was really moving into a calmer place. And I went to spell with him, and he started spelling with me, and he's, and he spelled, "Mom, you just keep getting calmer and calmer." So what, the point of this is, it's not like, "Take a few deep breaths."

• 28:33Speaker 03

  They are feeling your higher self. They need your higher self to be calm. And one way to stay calm, which is kind of ironic for autism parents who are suffering from years of PTSD, right? I'm like, "Oh, this is the ultimate ironic joke, that now I have to be completely calm to talk to my son, like, on a deep, deep, deep level." So, it's still a work in progress. And, and another thing I did is, I finally said, "You know what? We're going back to a practitioner together. We're starting at a date, we're starting at ground zero." So we went back to the practitioner and started at ground zero, and we moved up very quickly. And then from there, I'm gonna generalize it back out of the office. And so, so it's happening. It's still not like it was when it was just him and I. But anyway, it's very common.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Those are the things to watch out for is the parent has to really, really do their work to be a true co-regulator. Second, we have so many expectations for our kids. The practitioners are just much calmer, obviously. So all our parent overdrive and the wanting open, wanting open, like a big thing is to let go of wanting open. Like you just have to take each session for just exactly what it's going to be. Cause they, you know, a praxia can smell expectations, like just no expectations. We're just here together in this moment. And so those are the, the things is to not work towards open and it will come. Like it will just naturally come. Nobody's not become open, really, unless somebody's given up. Um, and

• 29:57Ky Dickens?

  There's a spelling coach in Atlanta, Austin, and we follow him in the telepathy tapes. Someone's coming out and he always says, if you follow the recipe, it will work. You just, you have to stick with it.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  And every parent's fear, like I was, it's like, I would go back to the practitioner before he was open and be like, have you ever had anyone who didn't get open? Is he not going to get open? I think that's a lot of people's fear and they all get open if you keep, if you keep at it. Um, at different timing, but it's so, it's just such a dance of being in the right vibration. And parents are much more, we're all hoverers. We've been to hell and back with our kids. Oh, the other thing I told him, I will never give up. You can say you don't want to spell with me a million times. I'm never giving up. And that's good for them to know too. Cause a lot of it can be the praxia and the loop, just pushing.

• 30:45Ky Dickens?

  Yeah. And the fear, like his fear, it sounds like it was really traumatic when he thought he was going to go be educated at nine and that school put him in the same life skills class. So the fear that like people will give up on me again, they'll give up on me again.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Right. So that's a big message I give, like, um, is that I'm not, I'm, I'm never giving up. This is what I want more than anything on this planet. And I saw his body relax when I said that.

• 31:08Ky Dickens?

  It's like such a journey of love. Non-speakers, especially with a praxia where it's just so hard to ever know. You know, by observation what's happening, because it's not a true marker.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  It's scary. It's really scary. And a lot of us went to spelling because we were afraid for medical stuff. I mean, I've, I found my son lying in a bed with shattered shoulders, and I never got to find out what happened until after he could spell.

• 31:34Ky Dickens?

  What happened?

• 31:35Speaker 03

  He had a seizure in the shower, and it was so forceful, and it was his first seizure, that it literally, not only dislocated, but like, kind of shattered. He's had to have double shoulder surgery. So you're scared. And I know a lot of other parents who, their reason for going to spelling is this kid needs to be able to tell me when something medically is going on.

• 31:54Ky Dickens?

  Should we bring him in here, go through some of his questions?

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 31:58Ky Dickens?

  Okay.

• 32:11Ky Dickens?

  Hey, so, welcome to the studio, Ryan. I know you spent a lot of time answering these listener questions. Do you want to go ahead and read them, Mary, and if Ryan wants to jump in?

• 32:21Speaker 03

  Well, basically, there was a question just about, um, what do you want to share with the world? Are you happy? What is your life like since spelling? Um, and you answered, and this first sentence made, he answered, "I love my life," which made me cry. And then he came over and wiped my eyes with tissues. So, "I love my life. I have been through many things in my journey to be an open speller. It has to be the accomplishment in my life to date that I am most proud of. This is in no way a solo victory. My family has been with me even on my worst days. The support to become a speller takes a family willing to be brave in the face of adversity. Never giving up is the first commitment to give a non-speaker the quality of life all people deserve."

• 33:03Speaker 03

  And then, part of that question was asking about apraxia, and how do you feel about dealing with apraxia? And, and Ryan responded,

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Health issues and living in a body I'm fighting to control have made life hell sometimes. The commitment my family made to me to never give up on me was one I also had to make to myself. I get to enjoy so many things that help me stay positive. I live in a house with my friends and visit my parents all the time. I love to cook and pay very close attention to what I put in my body. I want people to know that life is so beautiful when you can communicate. Without a way to share my thoughts, the colors in the world fall away from vibrance. Darkness consumes those left behind in silence. We are deserving of the chance to be heard and have our intelligence respected. Some may say that it's not for everyone, but I believe with my whole heart that everyone that can't speak can spell.

• 33:56Ky Dickens?

  I think that's a wonderful answer, Ryan. This is a question from a listener. Are all non-speakers able to communicate telepathically? I always get scared of generalizations, but... And are they able to communicate telepathically with just anyone, including speakers who may not currently communicate telepathically?

• 34:10Speaker 03

  Ryan answered yes to are all non-speakers telepathic.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Attend foodie.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Yes, it can happen for anyone who is willing to open their mind to the frequency, whether you're speaking or not. There are many people open to reaching shared consciousness in their own way. To be honest, it's not up to me how people get there. It's a personal pathway built between individuals who connect in a unique way. Non-speakers just know because it happens involuntarily.

• 34:36Ky Dickens?

  Ryan, do you like when you do the telepathy tests? I mean, is it fun to show or do you get frustrated by showing?

• 34:42Speaker 03

  F then, U then, N then, T then, O then, S then, H then, O then, W. Fun to show. It's funny because people get so blown away by it and to us it's so normal.

• 34:56Ky Dickens?

  I know, I know, and I always wanna, you know... Ryan, can you read your dad's mind too or any of your siblings' minds?

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Okay, just answer that one. Y, E, S. Yeah.

• 35:08Ky Dickens?

  This is from a listener. Some non-speakers appear to demonstrate a form of knowing that goes beyond typical intuition. In certain cases, they seem to anticipate future events or outcomes with notable consistency in ways that resembles precognition or savant-like perception. From your perspective, how should this phenomenon be understood?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Okay, and Ryan answered, um... Yeah. It should really be perceived as a sense that has been developing because the control of our speech isn't there. We took control in another sense. And then the, um, we asked for clarification and he said, "It's difficult to explain how the sense was developed, but over time it has strengthened to the point where it is happening unconsciously."

• 35:46Ky Dickens?

  That's a beautiful answer.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  I think that's all the questions. Okay, Ryan. Okay. So, um, I just want to ask you something before. Is there anything you would like to say? T then, H then, A then, and then... No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Keep finishing. Get your thought. Get it. K then, Y then, O then, U then, K then, Y, thank you Kai, F then, O then, R then, P then, H then, A then, M then, P then, I then, O then, and then, I then, and then, G. Thank you Kai for championing. Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  And then, O then, and then, S then, P then, E then, get it, get it, get it, A then, K then, E then, R then, S. Thank you Kai for championing, championing non-speakers.

• 36:49Ky Dickens?

  I feel like you're championing all humanity. You're really the one to be celebrated.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  You will be that now.

• 36:54Ky Dickens?

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:56Ky Dickens?

  You can go lie on the couch really quick since he's cozy on the couch. Tell me a little bit about his dreams, his dating, and what are some of the things he...

• 37:04Speaker 03

  Ryan has a lot of dreams. He really wants a college degree. And I've even said to him a few times, and he's in college, and I've even said to him a few times, like, you know, there's so much, like, busy work. Like, we can just educate you without all the nonsense of all this stuff you have to go through, the hoops you have to jump through to get a degree. And he's like, oh, no, I want my degree. So he wants a degree, he wants a mathematics degree. He wants his career to be advocacy for non-speakers. He even has ideas of schools. He has this idea of creating a school where the younger kids can see the older adults actually spelling and using their spelling in productive ways so that they have, like,

• 37:46Speaker 03

  mentors that they can see where their life can move towards. He talks about that a lot. And he really wants to help little non-speakers not go through what he went through. And he has friends. I mean, the biggest thing in life, really, is he has friends, good friends. He roller skates every Wednesday with all his speller friends. He's always skied. He skis a lot. He bike rides with all his friends. He goes to the movies with all his friends. They spell together in group sessions. He just started seeing a female in his speller group who asked him out, which is very exciting, and they're getting to know each other. And, like he said, he loves his life.

• 38:29Ky Dickens?

  Maybe you can just talk about Ryan, when he started writing songs, and some of these are hip-hop songs, which is really fun. When did he start writing these?

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Oh, remember when you asked me, like, what are the things that I learned about Ryan? The one big one was his deep relationship with God, and that he was very serious and intellectual. And, because he could have been anything. He could have been a jokester, he could have been, you know, but... And the other thing I learned was his deep, deep love of music. And I didn't know that. I knew he knew different bands, but it was always, like, he'd be more often than not be telling me to turn music off. But he has all these favorite bands, and he started writing music right away. It just came out of him. Nobody suggested it. And not music, but lyrics and poetry.

• 39:10Ky Dickens?

  Yeah. Does he play instruments, too, or just sing?

• 39:12Speaker 03

  He does, but with his apraxia, it's difficult. He said his biggest dream would be that he would be able to sing his own songs, and he does sing with a... A music teacher, but with the apraxia, it's really hard. But his song, and he said his, the thing he's most proud of is his songs. He really loves writing his songs. So, um, yeah. And then he said he wanted to write hip hop. Ryan's like, let's give it a try. And he just, he just spelled out that whole song and one sitting.

• 39:40Ky Dickens?

  Do you want to read us some of the chances?

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Sure. We haven't gotten anyone yet to put it to hip hop music. So if anyone wants to do that.

• 39:47Ky Dickens?

  First hip hop song, "Repair Yourself," 2023.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  "Repair Yourself." Ryan Heller, "Tons to Say." "My course doesn't happen every day. Born apgar the best, not sure of the rest. I could read, I could lead. The time and pain under the sheets. You let all the team talk while you sleep. Meant to decide my destiny. Well, all I want is some rest in me. Killing it with my spelling, still living in my mama's dwelling. Happy for all we have, in ways love is the salve. But I gotta make my way, mom will be gone one day." Um, verse two, "I win your game, lose your fame. Ryan Heller stoked a show, all the shit that I know. You will be hella surprised if you rally on my side. So help me communicate, so I can run all the way out the gate. Making my way to university, so I can let out every verse in me. Understand all that I plan, stories help you, man.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Map out my life, I may even love a wife. You are there for good, all are experimenting, mapped a path to be understood." Sorry. "So never doubt us, tons about us. Repair yourself, you're very good, you can surpass that childhood."

• 40:49Ky Dickens?

  I love that.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  Oh, another thing he told me when he could finally spell is I said, "This is the first year of your life, you can actually tell me what you want for your birthday." Because every year I would get radio. And then there'd just be all these radios piled up in the corner of his room, never used. So, um, he spelled, "I would really love private cooking lessons with a chef." And so that's what he's been doing ever since. So he, he cooks with a chef. He loves to cook. He cooks meals for me. Um, he, he's a, like he said, "I love my life." I mean, what more can you, what more words do you want to hear from your autistic adult who's been to hell and back a thousand times over?

• 41:27Ky Dickens?

  And I just think such a testament to why spelling is so important. Because if your child is under Reliable speaking or non-speaking can't say what they want maybe reliably for their birthday. I mean, who would have ever thought private cooking, private cooking.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  I know. I mean, I had no idea. So many things. I mean, that's, that's the, the beauty that I got to know my own son at 23 years old. I, I remember being like, like, can we go through the dinosaur sage, stage now? Like those things you miss, you know? And it's beautiful. I mean, it's just a really beautiful, special relationship. And he has no anger left in, for anybody. I mean, it's nothing but love for everybody.

• 42:01Ky Dickens?

  Well, you're an incredible role model, I think, for so many parents out there.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 42:05Ky Dickens?

  I mean, really, it's like your love shines through and your perseverance. And what a beautiful, I mean, the fact that he's ended here.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  I know. I'm so happy. I can't, I'm just so happy. It's worth everything.

• 42:18Ky Dickens?

  That's it for this episode of The Talk Tracks, but new episodes will be released every Wednesday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. And please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Producers Catherine Ellis and Selena Kennedy, technical directing, audio mix and finishing by Jeremy Cole, opening and closing music by Elizabeth P. W., and original logo and cover art by Ben Kandora Design. I'm Kai Dickens, your executive producer, writer, and host.

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