 Hello everybody. I'm so glad you can all make it tonight to be with us for our conversation on neurodivergence employment and health. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to share screen and get us oriented to to our community agreement and all the things that usually around this hour. So this is when I start it becomes extra hard to get the words out to the to the time of day. So here we go. I feel that. Thank you. So brain club our community conversation about everyday brain life. We're educational space for the collectible brains belong community to educate about neurodiversity. And because many brain club attendees have multiple different ways they interact with us as an organization we we find it helpful to just like name the thing. Because while many of you are our patients, many of you are not. And so just to name the thing that brain club is not for medical or mental health advice, it is not a support group. And, and why that is is because if if people were in a place to start to be processing individual trauma problem solving around specific issues but they don't have appropriate follow up. That actually can be can be harmful to to start start the process of unpacking in a in a in a deeply in a deep way without without wraparound support. So just naming the thing. This is an education space. All forms of participation are okay here so as many of you figured out you can have your video on or off. And even if we if you have it on we don't expect anything of you we certainly don't need to look at the camera so feel free to walk, move, digit stem eats, you know all the things. So, all formats of communication are okay here, you can unmute and use mouth words you can type in the chat. We've got a nice size group today. So we had one as the as brain club had been recently growing on we had to. My dyslexic brain was having a very hard time, keeping up with the chat and reading it out loud but I think I, anyway, we'll see how it's yesterday's go but it has a great place to participate. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity. It's really important that we respect and protect the groups collective access needs. I also wanted to name a new thing we we think we fixed the business about direct messaging and being able to copy links from the chat we think we fixed it. Anyway, and so the other thing that that allows us to do is if anything happens today that makes you uncomfortable. Feel free to send a direct message to Lizzie. And we will, we will do what we can in real time to make accommodations and adaptations to have you have your access needs to be met. And especially because many people participate with video off and may have some young years. Listening with them just wanted to just note, just be aware of the content in the language being used to to anyway. And especially once we get to our open discussion part of our info after we, we have our chat with our presenter. Just to respect and give space follow up participants to have a chance to participate in however they, they are most comfortable participating by the way observation is a completely valid for participation but for those who do want to be joining the chat or, you know, speaking out loud. Just make sure people have space. All right, so last bit of access closed captioning is enabled you just have to toggle it on if you'd like to use it. So depending on your version of zoom, you can click either the live transcript closed captioning icon. And if you don't see that Java more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles can also do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. So, if you're new to zoom, what you're looking for is a speech bubble and that will open up a chat box and feel free to use it. So, where are we, we're still in June. Our team has been neurodivergent health. And, as we know, employment is part of health. And so, before I introduce our, our, our, it's, I'm so excited to have you with us any before I introduce our special guest, just want to catch people up to I'll be on the page dot some shared vocabulary around context about about why this is connected to health. And, but first I will name that we have a special guest tonight, any crow is a neurodivergent human rights attorney, who helps other autistic people access their disability rights in order to live safer and more authentic lives. So what's burnout. So, I will make sure we link this article I don't have it at the ready right now I should always have it at the ready. I'm going to read you this title from this article by Rainmaker at all from 2020 having all your internal resources exhausted beyond measure and being left with no cleanup crew. Yep. So, yeah, neurodivergent burnout is a condition commonly experienced by autistic and ADHD years of all ages, characterized by one mental and physical exhaustion to loss of tolerance to stimuli, three loss of skills. I think my I think I think the slot I have next right yeah. Speaking of loss of skills. This is what my desk looked like a few weeks ago, I was going to say is that my kitchen right now. I appreciate the solidarity. Like so it's, you know when, when, when we see things that, you know, like the narrative of like, I should be able to, you know, keep a clean home or a clean desk or an organized whatever like, no, no, no you should not be because this is how it's a loss of executive functioning skills that come from trying to survive in a world that's not designed for your access needs and so readily thwarts you on a daily basis. The consequences of unmet access needs in healthcare and education and employment in social interactions. It's all like what happens when you try to fit the square peg into a round hole. You break the peg. And that's what this is about. And when we think about the social model of disability, where it's not deficits of the individual disability the amount of disability that someone experiences is relative to the bearish to access in the world. And you know, when you think of visible disabilities like for example if I were real share user and I approach a building that does not have a ramp, I'm going to have more disability than if I approach a building that does have a grant. And so it is with invisible disability. And layering on the chronic health conditions that autistic and ADHD people so commonly experience and if you to learn more about about this go back to the first week of the month and Lizzie maybe you can pop the link in the chat to the recording from the first week of June was June 1 or 2 or whatever that was, June 6 about neurodivergent health challenges where we covered some of this of the multi organ system neuro immune conditions, a ka, all the things. And layer layer on these the demands of and burnout being the consequence of when capacity exceeds demands chronically with insufficient recovery. So with that, I am going to introduce our release. One of the words to describe how awesome our special guest is. And when, when I, when I, when I, when I think about when I first met Annie, it was, it was actually in the context of LinkedIn, and linked. I had not figured out how to get my access needs met with linked in and Annie was so patient with me of like, you know, just not being able to keep up with responder so I'm for like a year later I'm so, so excited that you tolerated me long enough to join us for burnout. I mean, they're not for burnout. Yeah, all that. So I'm usually the one fan girling over Mel for anyone who hasn't heard us speak before. I'm going to put a bit I'm going to put a spotlight on you. Yeah, yeah. There we go. 813 in the morning here and it's one of the coldest days of the year. And I'm sick. So I look fabulous as usual. But it's so good to be here and thank you for having me Mel. I'm love talking to you and picking your brilliant brain and helping our community in any way possible. Right back at you. So, you know, I did this, we started this conversation when you interviewed me for your podcast, Princess and the P will link in the chat, which is an amazing resource and amazing community. So, so we started talking about neuroimmune health and burnout and the relationship that the circular relationship rate of burnout and employment. Well, I wonder for you, and based on that, you know, that your, your own personal experience and the clients you work with and, you know, I'd love to hear what you'd, what you'd say about that and we'd also love to hear more about you and the work you do. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, yeah, please do pull me back on track if I digress because I tend to do that even more when I'm sick, but anyway. So basically burnout is what I do. So it's interesting. The space that I work in is heavily dominated by mostly allied health professionals. So psychologists, dietitians, physios, that sort of thing, occupational therapists, speech pathologists. Um, and the reason for that here in Australia at least is that they tend to be the people who get referred to, what am I saying? I'm not speaking publicly. They tend to be the people that autistic people get sent to for help. Um, and, and so I'm a very unique person in this space because my background's human rights law. I've spent the last decade working both in private practice and for the Australian government in the national sort of security space. And I have had so much of my own health journey, lots of complex health problems, you know, all the things as we have. And it took me years of seeing every specialist under the sun and trying to advocate for my own health care and, you know, just, you know, being able to actually maintain employment while dealing with complex health and disability. And I never got the proper labels until I was in my late 20s. And so really it was a big shift for me. Um, it's many years ago now, but I sort of thought, well, this is ridiculous that it took so long for people to put the pieces together and get to the core at what my struggles were. And then it was a big shock to me because I thought things would get better when I found out I was autistic and ADHD and neurodivergent. I thought this is great. Finally, I'm going to be able to have my access needs met because I'll be able to walk into any office, any employer, any doctor, any anything and say, well, I'm autistic and they're going to just naturally maybe not employment so much but health care you'd expect, right? I would just naturally know that I had certain things that needed to be adapted, including sensory needs and different communication. And that was absolutely not the case at all. And so I did try initially to persevere in my more traditional employment and, you know, I disclosed at work and they were very kind and supportive. But the translation beyond being accepting and, you know, tokenistic on the front very well meaning was just not there. They wouldn't respect my wishes for, you know, limited phone calls. This was early COVID so work from home was becoming normal. And so really it was a big tipping point for me to say, well, that's it. I'm going to start advocating and speaking out and it just kind of skyrocketed. I've only been doing this for about 15 months now. And the minute I started talking publicly about my own experience, I was inundated with people from all around the world and still to this day get multiple messages a day. It's very overwhelming. Sharing so many shared lived experiences of burnout and discrimination and just inaccessible healthcare inaccessible employment. And so now I consult. So I consult government and I consult organizations and health professionals that want to become more neuro-affirming inaccessible and I also coach neurodivergent mostly adults. I've recently been getting a lot more parents reaching out, especially in the eating disorder space, which is one of my little niches. I started not for profit last year on eating disorders. But that's another topic. And yeah, so basically I sort of consider myself. I suppose a bit I call myself a neurodivergent empowerment coach, but to me what that really means is focusing on, you know, where a group of people like most minorities that are oppressed and discriminated against and have access needs. And so my form of empowerment is helping people self-advocate, whether that's at work or in healthcare or education, to have their needs met. And the biggest barrier there I find with a lot of my clients is that, you know, it's so great when we've finally got the label and the language. See, he wants a treat, sit down. We finally got the label and the language, but then we're still limited by a society that has such limited beliefs. I was just thinking yesterday I was interviewed on national television here in December on a piece on social media and autism and ADHD. And they used me as the segue from the, I think it was a psychiatrist or a researcher saying that there was so much misinformation on TikTok and Instagram and stuff. And me basically saying, yeah, but is it really a problem if it's helping people like actually go and seek help and find out about themselves? But then I sort of thought to myself, I've just been reflecting recently and I'm like, I think the issue here is actually that that and I'm not pooping professionals or anything like that. But I think we need to be quite critical of, and this is why I love Mel's work so much because Mel's done the work and Mel and her team have really unpacked their own biases and and the system that they were, you know, trained in. Which is sadly quite rare, but and I promise I have a point. I think the issue isn't that there's a lack of, you know, misinformation. I think the issue is is that the most of the professionals have such a limited view of what it is to be autistic ADHD neurodivergent. And so when they see stuff on social media where you've got hundreds of autistic people sharing their lived experience and them looking at that and going well that's not in the DSM so that's inaccurate. Is it or is the DSM limited. And so and this is very relevant for employment and burnout and access because when when when I and I help sadly so many adults who are getting really blatantly discriminated against at work whether they're losing their jobs or getting put on performance reviews or all of those sort of things where they're saying I have these access needs and work is saying well that's not autism or having these very limited beliefs on, you know, the autistic people just need like less eye contact and and no bright lights, which we all know is the most limited view you could possibly have of our access needs. So really, what I help people do is find the language and articulate what they truly need to have meaningful access to employment. So that they're not in perpetual burnout which is such a big we call it autistic burnout for a reason. Our community is constantly in burnout from basically existing in a world that refuses to accommodate us. My business, my consulting firm is called neuro access and the point of that is that aligned with the social model of disability for me it's really about. We need to shift this perspective and really focus on these environments and make the people in positions of power and privilege take responsibility in helping us access employment healthcare, you name it. I'm in a nutshell. Yeah, I'm a busy person and I could use more help so anyone who wants to advocate in this space to reach out if I sort of try to mentor some people to get more of us out there we need we need so many more voices. Amen to that. And I just popped some links in the chat. Annie's podcast as well as the website for neuro access. Oh yeah. So, a lot of times, yeah, people will say alright so now I know burnout's a thing. Now what, and I say, there's no magic right you have to you know, there really needs to be some shifts in how much you're draining your battery versus how much you're charging your battery and employment is a huge drain on battery. And it's almost like so to be able to access one's cortex have the executive functioning skills required to self advocate that you don't have access to that you're just drowning. Yeah, absolutely. It's like and that's the thing, you know I think another problem that I see really often is that you know we we are perpetually in burnout or we recover and then go back into burnout. And so many people get confused by that because they're like well I've made changes and I'm trying to find that balance and put things in place to prevent this happening but the problem is is that no matter how hard we try on an individual level we're still constantly faced with this system that remains inaccessible like you could have the most amazing employer the most neuroaffirming employer who truly, if not gets neurodivergence as at least willing to listen and learn, and treats you as the expert that you are on your neuro system, you know, and you'll still be up against so many challenges so you know I constantly try to help people separate individual responsibility from systemic and it's not to say that we don't all have individual responsibility because we do but unfortunately so many of our community have, you know, really internalised a lot of this ableism and blame ourselves for our lack of access and we blame ourselves for our inability to prevent burnout and to exist in this world. Oh my goodness dog. He's just not a morning person either. Anyway, so really I sort of work overtime in trying to help people understand that it's this it's so much bigger than the individual. And the reason I do that is because it's really at the core of being able to advocate for ourselves and to have our needs met is that when you're trying to advocate for your rights coming from a place of shame and internalised ableism it's so much harder than knowing that you can speak out and know that it's not on you and so much of what we deal with in society around mental health and well being is put on the individual. You know whether that's weight or mental health in general, it's all pushed back on the individual rather than acknowledging that there is so many external factors that are at play here. And you know like for instance Mel and I both shudder at the word resilience, because resilience is like one of the, the most common things we hear. We want to build resilience in people. People don't lack resilience. I'm going to tell you autistic people are some of the most bloody resilient people I've ever met. Here's my Aussie coming out bloody because we're constantly knocked down and we still get up. Like it's not a resilience issue. It's an access issue. It's discrimination. It's oppression and and these are big words right and they sound very fancy and complex and they are but to be able to translate that into everyday language of what does that actually mean. So what that means is that you're not allowing me to make these small changes around how I communicate where how I show up the hours I work where I work from all of those things directly impact my health and well being an ability to maintain employment. And that is like taking big picture oppression discrimination ableism into very tangible actions. And that's really some of the hardest things to do because you know any minority group finds it challenging to talk about how they're struggling and you know we talk about like white fragility you know white people don't like hearing how we're racist. Most of us are like even if we've done a lot of work to unpack that and it's similar in ableism it's similar in all minority groups having to talk to your oppressor about how they are playing a part consciously or not in those systems of oppression is so challenging and when you add to that. So that being a person who has a completely different way of communicating, which causes so much anxiety and so much stress on our already overstressed nervous system. It's a health crisis, waiting to happen, if not continuously happening to no surprise. Anyway, I'll get off my horse. And in the, like, I mean, the genius. Yes, all of that, amen to all of that. And I think that when you're in the thick of it, because of that narrative that's been so over rehearsed of you are the problem you are defective you are the anyway. That makes it all the more challenging so you, not only is the onus on you to advocate for your rights to your oppressor, but you think it's your fault. Yep, exactly. Exactly, which just disempowers you and takes away any chance at getting your needs met and any, you know, right that you have, because this is, you know, and I am a lawyer and human rights is my thing and you know I think the thing that I see a lot in this space, especially because it's dominated by psychologists and psychiatrists who obviously the autism experts is that so many of them don't have any education in social systems, laws, frameworks, government, things that directly impact our health and well being. And so really this is again why I love Mel and her work and the people in our in our community who have who have really expanded their views from a very limited and narrow mindset that it is the product of the systems that we're in like I'm not blaming health professionals at all or employers. You know, we get trained and we get taught what we know, but it's it's also about taking responsibility and learning these bigger systems I was just listening. I got a message yesterday from one of the people that just recently took my masterclass in eating disorders and supporting autistic people and she sent me some screenshots of newsletter that she got from her child's kindergarten, which is like preschool daycare whatever. And they basically wrote this big piece on disease to academics in Queensland here in Australia that wrote a book last year called becoming autistic. And just for anyone who doesn't know, when you hear that title, I don't know about you but I thought to myself, oh that's great this is going to be about embracing your artistic identity, autistic identity and it's going to be so empowering. No, it's not. They literally talk about how technology is causing autism. It's so bad. I literally was up till 2am unpacking the, the, the horribleness that is this thing. And they talk about how like theory of mind. I'm like, do you not know about the double empathy problem? It's been over a decade now. Really? How are you academics and you don't understand double empathy and autism? Anyway, I'm going on around. But my point is here is that these are the people who are influencing our system, who are seen as the experts and who, you know, so much of our access is relied on this even in the legal system. I actually was in a car accident myself in my early 20s and I had to go through our legal system to get third party insurance claim. And I'm a lawyer. So, you know, I, I figured I'd have a hand up even though I have no experience in personal injury law, but my neurodivergence was actively used against me in every step of the way in this lawsuit. And I'm going to use this as an example because I think it's really translatable to employment as well in burnout and all the things. But one of the things that happened was when I was not working for a period and really struggling sit down moose. I was so like, so burnt out yet so bored and I talk a lot about bore out in my work. And that's a big part of autistic burnout as well. But anyway. And they basically said to me, you know, you're lying because you're you've I made this Instagram account was like a makeup thing. I was obsessed with makeup for a period it was like my anyway of coping. But like my my way of existing in the world was continuously attacked and because I was putting like my highlight reel online which was, you know, I'd put makeup on my face maybe once a fortnight when I had an ounce of energy. And I'd put a post online. To them, they're like, oh, you look like you're doing well and again this isn't like it so much of this is invisible and hard to articulate right but what I'm trying to get at is so much of this comes down to what is our assumed knowledge of neurodivergence and how does that impact our ability to have our needs met. So when we go into work and say things like I need to be able to work flexibly and what does that look like and why we're met with things like well, you know, I've done some research since you disclosed and I know that the A, B and C are common things that autistic people need at work. And this isn't one of them. What like this is at the core of our issue because autistic people as most of you know if you're listening, we're very diverse within our own community and our needs are very different. And so if you're going off this cookie cutter research that is so limited and so much focused on, you know, what they call profound autism which is not a thing in my opinion, but is often really focused on autistic people with intellectual disability, majority of the workforce because we're so not in the workforce already because of discrimination and such, underemployed, all those things. But so many like my clients are a very particular set of autistic people and they usually, you know, twice exceptional people or autistic people without intellectual disability. Do you want me to define twice exceptionality. Okay, cut me off Mel, I'll just keep turning on. No, no, no. I have a question but yeah, I should have impulsive like I like could have impulse control to keep my hand down. No, no, go for it. No, so well I mean the thing is that. Was that me. I have no idea but that's incredible where did I sorry I bumped my I've got this audio setup thing. Sound effects. Anyway, so but like, so our understanding and you know if you look at things like high functioning autism and aspergers and stuff. Things that basically people say that we're not really that autistic or we don't really have access needs. It's rubbish because most of us just have the ability to hide these programs, which is leads to more problems are harmful, so harmful. Most of us have you know like I mean just just the fluctuating capacity. And so dynamic disability for a reason and I I don't even like support so a lot of people say oh don't say hi low functioning just say hi low. And I'm like that's also kind of quite limiting because our support needs fluctuate depending on our environment and ever like there's so many different factors. Around the time of my autism diagnosis I lost the ability to motor plan brushing my teeth and I couldn't get words out for a prolonged period of time like. Yeah, but you'll have this a motor disability. Um, so one thing I wanted to what I what I want to first of all just want to answer a question the chat Julie asked just about defining twice do you want to do that. Do you want to ask my question go ahead. Yeah, yeah, go for it. Good luck remembering your questions. I'd forget. So to a twice exceptionality or also multi multiple exceptionality whatever you call it because most of us are more than one. It's essentially having a disability and some form of giftedness and people can get a little touchy about this subject because people don't like talking about giftedness and hi IQ and all of that jazz but I'm particularly interested in it because that's most of my clients and also I think it's really important to acknowledge that people who either are gifted or even just not don't have a co-occurring intellectual disability have a very unique set of challenges. And this is the community that face you know higher rates of masking higher rates of suicide all the things that I speak about at conferences and consult on constantly. And so not acknowledging that because we all have tall poppy syndrome and don't like to talk about smartness, whatever that means because giftedness is more than intellect you can be creatively gifted to gifted intuitively all those things. Basically what it means is that your giftedness isn't recognized and your disability isn't supported so you're in this phase of like I'm not having my support needs met as a disabled person, but I'm also not getting recognized for some of the talents and skills that I do have. So it's a very, yeah. But also I'd also say is that when we speak of internalized ableism, this population one of the challenges that one of the many challenges this population faces is that when it comes to asynchronous development or so called scattered skills. So here I am I'm a kid who like you know does well at school. Um, does maybe really well at school but I like math is like holy. Anyway, like so I'm like oh I hope they don't find out. Impostor syndrome rejection sensitivity. Yeah, absolutely. I use it. Yeah, go go go. So the other piece that I just want to circle it back around because I don't trust my ability to like remember this. Um, do it. So I think, and maybe this is just my cynicism. But I think I am concerned that often people are in a place for advocating for their rights at work. I don't see many people prosper, because they often these environments are just so toxic, whereas if there was already an environment where people where employees individual thriving was prioritized you wouldn't have to evoke your, your legal rights, because that's the conversation because that's just how that goes, which is why you know talking about, you know, I think like, you know, people, people, people unfortunately are in places where they have to invoke their legal rights. Like, why we talk about inclusion here is that, you know, not only are at least one in five people neuro day virgin, but often they don't know so employers don't know and the people don't know which is why creating environments for people with all types of brains can thrive using principles of universal design etc is so much better than waiting for people to have to fight. And what do you think about that comment. Oh, I love that so much. Honestly, it's it's at the core of what I do. So, you know, I am a human rights lawyer but I no longer practice like discrimination and human rights law per se. And in the suicide prevention space they call suicide prevention has upstream and downstream so downstream is where you're in crisis and you're calling emergency services and upstream is like, let's do stuff that prevents you getting to that point. And so for my job I see myself as an upstream human rights lawyer. So, and that's why I love talking about things like inclusion and access and universal design, how can we put things in place so we don't get to a point where we're having to go to court where we're having to go to the Human Rights Commission where we're having to fight for our basic rights, because usually by that point, things are so toxic, and it's so hard to come back from. So I have a lot of my clients will come to me where they're in this middle phase of they're not quite at the stage where they're seeking, you know, illegal action, but they're also not at the stage of, you know, this this nirvana that we're all keeps working for. And so it's this really fine balance of trying to work with employers who often really do mean well, but we have this this very, you know, deficit based view and sort of, I don't know what the word for it is but like tokenistic fixing that, you know, everyone starts to get their backup and they're like, oh, I don't want to like do anything wrong and I want to meet my legal obligations as an employer, but I also like don't want to deal with this stuff, because it's taking away from the work I like doing or should be doing or whatever you want to put in there. And so it becomes very quickly can can go downhill if you're not, you know, getting the right support or if you're just unlucky to have a not great employer. So really what I'm trying to do in my own work is very much focusing on how can we get employers to start thinking about this stuff far before we have to get labels or disclose or talk about our specific struggles, because one, not very empowering and two, does raise all these barriers of, you know, preconceived stigma, stereotypes, all the challenges that we constantly have to do deal with when we're barely struggling like struggling to exist to begin with and it's all put on us as the individual to advocate for so I am just like that comment was gold. I'm all about that life. I could talk to you all day. So I want to open this up to questions from our community. First question. Can you talk about bore out bore out. Yeah, so bore out is one of my passions. So in burnout, when you hear people talking about autistic burnout, a lot of the time we'll talk about, you know, pulling back on demands and really just trying to reset that that sort of the pressure on our nervous system and such to come out of the burnout but often what happens and especially for, you know, twice exceptional or the most of the people I support is that we tend to struggle with the thing called bore out so when you pull back on everything, you're there's this, you know, sort of element of guilt I guess and shame around feeling that you can't do anything because you like because you can't do these basic things like keep attending work or whatever. You shouldn't be able to do anything that you love. You know, you shouldn't be able to hyper focus on your, your special interest or passion or whatever you want to call it, because you can't do the other stuff when actually that can be a real remedy for us. So focusing, you know, not getting into bore out as well which is essentially, you know, not being bored because you're not doing anything like you're pulling back so much from the demands at life that you're not able to do what is really interesting and fulfilling for you. And so really I try to talk about with my clients who are in burnout recovery, really trying to balance that pulling back on demands while also filling up your cup replenishing your spoons and for a lot of autistic people that is leaning into your special interest is giving yourself permission to still do the things that do fill you up, even though to an outsider than what that can look like often and this really is quite common for for parents or spouses or whatever, is that they're like well you can't work but you can spend all day doing ABC. Like that's bullshit. That's rubbish. Like no, you're missing the point. Right. Right. I mean what I would add to this is like just from a brain science standpoint so autistic and ADHD brains are dopamine bound brains we need dopamine literally for everything like dopamine feels good to everybody but we need dope. We need it. We need it, not just for like you know motivation engagement attention we need for like motor functioning coordination and starting stopping an activity starting and stopping an idea. And so, when you are not getting enough dopamine, whether because, as you said, you're not doing something interesting, you're not or you're not moving, or you're not eating protein and water, which gets very circular because if you have intero accessing differences you may not be hungry or thirsty or from an executive functioning situation, it may be difficult to access those things or from a financial perspective, given that autistic people are two and a half to four times more likely to be unemployed. Less likely to be able to, you know, that's another barrier to accessing sufficient protein to make enough dopamine anyway it gets a very circular. You know, not being able to manage your finances which is a huge part of just being able to have money regardless of employment and income. Absolutely. So we talk about what with our medical patients here is part of burnout recovery is like thinking about like dosing and frequency intensity of your experiences so like if I, if it fills my cup to interact with you. It does not mean I should interact with you for three hours. Even though that often is what happens, but then I like can't talk after that like I probably should send alarm or something have that really cool noise that yours phone made anyway. Yeah. Yes, anyway. No, absolutely. Yeah, so what other questions do folks have. Yeah, I know I while we're waiting for questions. Feel free to add any if anyone wants to talk. Go ahead but that's such a good point, Mel, because I think, you know, and I before I knew about my own neurodivergence, I was going through like chronic pain stuff and they're all about pacing and I used to hold so much the fact that I struggled to pace, not only because I had, you know, struggles with introception and acknowledging, you know, noticing when I needed to slow down or whatever. And then so when I was struggling with increased pain, it felt like it was all my fault because I couldn't pace. So I love that you talk about that with your patients, but you will do it from an affirming way where acknowledging that it is really hard as an autistic ADHD to pace and to find these balances of, you know, needing to do the things that really do fill you up but also needing to limit them per se so that they don't also overdo it and drain you in other ways. Yeah, but keen for questions. Mel and I can keep chatting. Try to distract my dog. This is why I don't do things in the morning because it's like, it's school bus time and so he's all irritated by my the kiddies walking out the front and anyway, but I'll do it I'll do it for my my favorite people across the pond. Thank you. So feel, feel free if anybody has other questions otherwise I've got oodles. I just want to create some space. So I just a comment in the chat Christina says the fatigue and pain after I socialized too much I realized oh no I did it again, which is, you know, how could that not happen. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, of like, you know, do something end up doing too much and then like not be able to do anything for a prolonged period of time, you know, like and the thing about pacing is that, you know, I think pacing based on internal body signals doesn't work very well for our community but it has to be more of like, you know, learning learning patterns, you know, so when I am speaking to someone for more than, you know, 45 minutes, I'm pretty spent afterwards. So now I have to become a person who has 30 minute meetings and which is so hard. When you're also the type of person that whether it's for health reasons or neurodivergent reasons, or both, you know, like for instance, I don't see people I don't go out into the world and see my friends in real life very often so when I do. It's really easy for me to want to then spend like a good chunk of time with them to sort of make up for the fact that I'm not the friend that is regularly catching up because it's just too much for me. And so, you know, not only is it the whole introception at the angle, but it's also, I guess this sort of pressure on us to feel like we should be doing certain things or we should, we have this responsibility that it to maintain friendships we need to be able to, you know, actually put enough effort in and that can really easily to lead us lead us down that path of overdoing it. But I love talking about strategies that can help that including recognizing this stuff setting alarms, being really upfront to your friends and loved ones around. I'll come to this party but I have to leave at a certain time, you can make something up, or you can tell them the truth. I'm just going to let my dog out so he stops annoying. Yeah. Just to just to comment there's a link question the chat to define interception so do you want to do that now. Yeah just to process an internal body signals, you know whether that be, you know, you know I have to pee, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm, you know, sad, you know those are all internal bodies. I'm in pain. Yeah, yeah. There's a question in the chat. In the context of employment and noting we're dealing with systemic issues how do you determine how much energy to use to pursue self advocacy when it's hard to know if an employer's efforts are genuine or opportunistic. That's such a good question, and it's so hard to know because often when you're at a point where you're actively thinking about things like do I disclose or how do I, how do I deal with this, you're usually at a point where you're pretty much on the verge of burnout anyway so you don't have a lot of self advocate, but how do you determine how much energy I think it's really a matter of of sort of deciding or just try like just starting and then really consciously checking in with yourself or with someone who supports you as you go along that journey, because another thing that comes up for a lot of my clients is so boundaries is a big one and autistic people often especially late diagnosed will have CPTSD and a lot of that will come down to you know high masking not putting our needs first and you know that's all linked to the systemic oppression and everything but what this can look like is that you know we can very quickly ignore and I love Mel said this in our podcast chat the other day around listening to learning to listen to her own intuition again but we can really ignore our intuition, we can ignore those danger signs that we hear. And so when you're talking about like, if you are actually talking to an employer and wanting to know are they being tokenistic, are they are going to meaningfully support me to try and access, you know continue to work and such. I think it really does start to come into checking in with yourself and again whether you need external support because it's very hard to do on your own. For me, for example, and like, I think people get surprised but I still do this I talked to my psychologist quite regularly. Most of my psych sessions these days and I see a weekly psychologist and I'm a big advocate for everyone seeing a regular psychologist but also recognize it's a huge privilege. But some of the stuff we talk about is things like, I will literally go through some of the interactions I've had with people, whether that's an employer or whatever and to really talk about. Oh, is someone there. I heard somebody, maybe someone's boy anyway, so I really just the thing that helps me with this and it doesn't have to be a psychologist it can be a friend, a doctor, coach whatever. But getting someone else's external opinion on a situation and usually you to caveat this so you want someone who's going to have help you and not invalidate you just hard. But it can be really helpful to be more aware of the warning signs of knowing when to hit that limit of. Am I just banging a bell that's not going to get anywhere you know am I doing this and there's no point so it's and it's also making that decision of. And again this all very much into links with privilege and such but like how much do you continue to fight and self advocate in your workplace versus looking for a better workplace or finding a better workplace environment that's actually going to support your needs and have that more universal design inclusive accessible culture from the get go, which is quite hard to find. You know, rather than banging your head against a wall trying to fix an environment that maybe isn't fixable. So I'm sorry that was really long winded. No, and it becomes, you know, I think a lot of people when they're in the trenches, they can't imagine having spoons to one look for new employment, let alone like present that they're best at an interview like just it just seems so big and it's like well it must be, it must be better to like stick it out and anyway it's exactly there's so many different it's such a complicated scenario, like maybe. I mean there's all there's all kinds of reasons why people stay in traumatic environments and employment is is a type of traumatic environment for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. And also it's it's like the path of least resistance. You know, you'll see so much in, especially on like LinkedIn, everyone's focused on, you know, autistic people and making the recruitment process more accessible whether that's, you know, not relying as heavily on interviews or whatever that looks like but the problem is is that a lot of places will stop at that point. And so we actually have a lot of these programs in place that are creating more accessible initial access to work and what we're finding to this day, a lot of them are failing. They you hit the 12 month mark and most of these people are on stress leave or com care in Australia is a thing, but or I've left the employment because the support that they got at the front at the front end just dropped off and there was no ongoing, you know, accessibility happening. And so it really but then at the same time if you're struggling in a workplace, it can be really easy to think well this is at least better than having to fight for a job again because we all know that's hard. I use this example. Right before I completely left my traditional employment and became self employed last year. I had taken a couple of years off because I had a baby and was on medical leave before that. And I was trying I was thinking oh you know I might I might stick around and continue this stuff because I wasn't quite ready to fully go out on my own. And one of the challenges I face which is so common for my own clients that I see is that my current employer who I didn't actually have that much experience working for because that job I only got right when I went on this this period of leave. They weren't happy to give me a reference because they I just hadn't worked for them long enough which is fair enough sure. And then my previous employer to that which was two and a half years prior who by the way gave me like I've never I've always got glowing reports. I've literally been given like excellence for my departments and stuff. So this is very real no matter how you're performing. She said that had been too long since she was my boss even though she she was one of my favorite bosses and really liked me. And so I'm sitting in this position where I'm like okay well I'm considering staying in this job in this you know in the public service but I can't get a referee. Not because I'm not good at what I do, but because of my situation and my health and my disability. You're all not supporting me in like, these are very tangible problems that face that our community face. And so when you're sitting in a job where maybe you are trying to self advocate and you are facing discrimination. It's very easy to go well this is better than the alternative, which is so sad. Right. Absolutely. And I mean, this is that exactly what you just said applies to so many, so many other things, you know, unhealthy relationships for example, like I don't want to start over, you know, there's all kinds of sometimes rationalizing that I've gone about what do I have spoons for and what's the path of least resistance and yes, how do how do I manage this. And if you have the kind of brain that drives safety from predictable systems and predictability a known quantity sometimes is appraised differently than an unknown quantity. And so acknowledging that there's a lot of a lot of reasons for this. So, so as, as, as we wrap up today, I'm sorry, and Christina is also adding to that just having health benefits at a current job versus knowing that you probably have to wait for health benefits in a transition period and a new job. Yes, absolutely. All of that. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, if, if, um, if you were going to wrap up our conversation, you have any parting thoughts. Um, well, my head's getting stuck on the trauma thing, which by the way is one of my special interests and I could talk about all day, but I think that there's so much to unpack in terms of trauma. I think most minorities deal with trauma to an extent do definitely, but autistic trauma is so complex because, you know, there's a lot of people who believe that autism is literally trauma. And it's not, uh, you know, trauma is something that we develop. Um, whether that's a big, big T trauma event or lots of micro trauma developing into complex PTSD and, you know, autistic people were born with a unique brain and nervous system, right. And often we have got more chances of developing, whether it's big P PTSD or C PTSD. And I think one of my last comments on that, which is just like, I feel like opening up a whole nother conversation, but still is that it's so important to learn more about that because you can get support. And, you know, this is why we're starting to hear people talk about neuro affirming therapy and such. There's so much that we can get help with, with trauma, but it needs to be done in a way that is affirming of our autistic identity and acknowledging our autistic nervous systems and brains and every part of our existence, which so often isn't. And I think that that's really important and, and really often missed, um, because you can get your, you can get help for trauma. I am a living example of having recovered from trauma, both big T and little T. And yet I'm still very autistic and disabled and neurodivergent. And they're very different things, but they are very interconnected and the complex to unpack. But anyway, yeah, hit me up on socials and I'm sure Mel and I'll have another chat soon. Yes, we'll definitely have to have you back. Thank you. Thank you so much. And see some hearts popping up all around for you. You're not alone. That's exactly right. And that's, you know, that's what brain clubs about like brain club is about coming together to learn and often to unlearn together. Because so many people think that they are the only one. 100% we all do. And it's so important. I think community is critical. And just knowing that you're not alone because, and this is again with the complex trauma and the microtrauma is that when you're constantly invalidated about your existence because you grow up thinking feeling and perceiving things differently. It's so important and vital to find places like brain club like the neurodivergent community online, like your neuro kin, people who are truly going to validate your existence. I think that's like the core of health right now. It's just so important. Of course, I mean it's everything. Yes. Yes. I also, I just somebody just asked her to recap burnout so I'll do that real quick and on the all brains belong. Instagram, we have a lot of posts about burnout and in fact those slides that I showed today, they were literally copy screenshots of our Instagram posts. So burnout is a condition of physical and mental exhaustion, loss of tolerance to stimuli and loss of skills. But, but check out I put the link in the chat or Instagram. Oh, I'll also Lizzy's reminding me to mention that speaking of Instagram. Just like the other day, Annie and I did an Instagram live on this topic I have an Instagram live coming up tomorrow in collaboration with Iris Warshall who is an autistic physical therapist talking about neurodivergence and pain. And that'll be tomorrow at 630 Eastern. Oh, thank you David. Next week at brain club is our monthly book chat. And it's a day without words by Tiffany Hammond. And do we have a link hold on a second let's not go anywhere let's put a link. If we don't have a link we'll get you a link. Okay with no words to go racing Lizzy I bet. Oh there's a lawnmower in the background. No. Lisa's not a parking dog. I'm going to go have words to moose. That is, that's a that's good reframing at least, at least not a parking dog or link copy. Here we go. I think that's the link to the book. And even if you've not read the book. Come anyway, because that's what book chat is there's no right way. And you know we always have a combination of just reflections on beams and we'll hopefully have an author video clip to to review. All right, well thank you so much. Thank you, Annie and thank you. Thanks for the great questions and engagement. You're all fabulous and just love this community. I'll come back anytime now. Bye.