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Autistic woman ordering room service offers rare insight into internal struggles

What the person on the other end of the phone doesn't see is an entire story unto itself.

woman making a phone call in a hotel room

@PaigeLayle/TikTok

Ordering room service can require herculean effort for some people.

One of the weirdest parts of being human is how none of us really knows what's happening in another person's head or how other people act when they're by themselves. We often wonder if we're the only ones whose brains work a certain way or if other people go through the same mental or emotional obstacle courses we do when performing certain tasks.

When you live with someone who deals with mental/emotional challenges like anxiety or someone who lives life with neurodivergence, you see a bit more of people's behind-the-scenes reality. But even then, there are things we don't fully see because they're happening internally.

One autistic woman, however, has offered an insider look into her internal processing in a video showing her ordering room service at a hotel for the first time.

Paige Layle is a Canadian woman who shares various aspects of her life on social media to raise awareness and advocate acceptance for autism and ADHD. In a TikTok video that's been viewed 4 million times in one day, she explained that she was at a hotel and wanted to order breakfast, then walked viewers through her whole process of anxiously preparing, actually making the phone call and her emotional relief after the fact.

People who don't struggle with the uncertainty of a phone call, even a basic one like ordering room service, may wonder what all the fuss is about. But people on the spectrum and people who struggle with social anxiety or anxiety about making phone calls will likely recognize themselves in this video.

Watch:

@paigelayle
calling for room service for the first time 🙈😅 #actuallyautistic #autism #paigelayle #foryou

The rehearsing what you're going to say as well as what the other person will probably say, the silent freakout upon actually pushing the button, the sudden shift into "totally normal person" mode once the phone call commences, the adrenaline explosion after hanging up, the shaking out of the excess nervous energy, the "that was okay, but awful" sentiment—it's all so familiar to so many people, whether they're dealing with autism, ADHD, anxiety or some combination of them all.

But the person on the other end of the phone would never have guessed this was happening behind the scenes. Paige even handled the unexpected coffee addition with zero issue. Knowing that unexpected things might come up in a conversation is what creates anxiety about phone calls like this, so the fact that she didn't skip a beat when the dialogue diverged from what she'd planned out in her head was genuinely impressive.

Some people might wonder about her "and no one's mad at me or anything" remark, but that's not an unusual concern for people on the autism spectrum as well as people with ADHD and others who might experience rejection sensitive dysphoria.

People in the comments commiserated with Paige while cheering her on.

"I’ve only ordered room service ONCE and this was the EXACT experience. I earned that French toast," shared one commenter.

"You did amazing!!!! I’ve actually never ordered room service because I hate phone calls… too much anxiety!" wrote another.

"The progression from 'anticipatory panic' to 'perfect execution' and finally 'post-mental breakdown' was so real lol i relate," shared another.

"The way you did it perfectly but wrapped that in panic is me everyday," wrote another.

And that's really the crux of it. So many people struggle mightily internally while successfully doing everyday things, with no one on the outside ever knowing the mental and emotional journey it took for them to do those "normal" things. Hopefully, videos like this will help us all give a little more grace and understand why people might be more exhausted or less willing to do things than it seems like they should be. When it's this much work to order a yogurt, imagine how much energy it takes to do other things. This is where a little awareness and empathy can go a long way toward acceptance and understanding.

Follow Paige Layle on TikTok and check out her upcoming book: "But Everyone Feels This Way: How an Autism Diagnosis Saved My Life."

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National Geographic Documentary Films

Family

Nat Geo's 'Blink' tracks a family finding beauty while facing blindness as they travel the globe

“Let's go all in and fill their visual memory with as much beauty as we can."

via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

True

“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.

However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geo Leo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

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Family

People applauded after Mark Wahlberg confronted the DJ at his daughter's dance party

Dad to the rescue.

via TheEllenShow / YouTube

Mark Wahlberg on "The Ellen Show."

Actor Mark Wahlberg recently attended a daddy-daughter dance with his 10-year-old, Grace. Sadly, Grace had no interest in seeing her father strutting his stuff on the dance floor.

"I didn't get one dance," Wahlberg told Ellen DeGeneres. "And I told her we were going to do the whole big circle and I was going to go off. And she said, 'Dad, if you embarrass me, I will never talk to you again.' But what she did do is she hung out with me."

No matter who your dad is, especially if you're a 10-year-old-girl, you have zero desire to see him dance in front of your friends.

But the parents at the dance probably would have had a blast seeing Wahlberg bust out some of his old-school '90s Marky Mark moves.

However, Wahlberg couldn't help but leave his mark on the music being played at the dance.

Let's not forget, he didn't get famous for his acting but for showing off his abs in the "Good Vibrations" video.

Being that Wahlberg's time as a pop star was three decades ago, he couldn't believe it when he heard the music being played at the dance.

"[Grace] sat there on the edge of the stage, by the DJ. And then I'm sitting there with one other dad and I'm like, 'This is not an edited version of this song. There are explicit lyrics being played at a school dance for girls and I'm like no good,'" he said.

"I told the DJ and he's like, 'Oh, I thought it was.' I said, 'What are you doing?' I'm hearing F-bombs and this and that's not okay," Wahlberg said.

He's right. There's no place for music with explicit lyrics at a dance for 10-year-old children.

Wahlberg says the DJ didn't know he wasn't playing the edited version, but it's probably more likely that he didn't even realize the song was a problem. Pop music these days is filled with a numbing amount of violent and misogynistic lyrics.

A recent study from the University of Missouri found that nearly one-third of pop songs contain lyrics that degrade or demean women by portraying them as submissive or sexually objectified.

Currently, three of the top five songs on the Billboard Top 40 contain the word "bitch." One of them is sung in Korean.

It's odd that Americans have become more sensitive to misogyny in pop culture in films, television, and comedy, but still have a huge cultural blind-spot when it comes to music.

That's not a good thing, especially when pop music is marketed to teenagers.

"We know that music has a strong impact on young people and how they view their role in society," said Cynthia Frisby, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism.

"Unlike rap or hip-hop, pop music tends to have a bubbly, uplifting sound that is meant to draw listeners in," Frisby continued. "But that can be problematic if the lyrics beneath the sound are promoting violence and misogynistic behavior."

Let's face it, pop stars are role models. Their examples show young people what to wear and how to behave. That's not to say that kids will blindly follow someone just because they like their music. But it has an undeniable effect.

Wahlberg, and any parent who monitors what their kids are listening to, deserve credit for protecting the minds and hearts of their kids.

Frisby has some great advice for parents concerned about negative imagery in pop music.

"Ask your daughters and sons what songs they like to listen to and have conversations about how the songs might impact their identity," Frisby said.

"For example, many songs might make young girls feel like they have to look and act provocative in order to get a boy to like them, when that isn't necessarily the case. If children and teens understand that what they are hearing isn't healthy behavior, then they might be more likely to challenge what they hear on the radio."