 Hi everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Brain Club. I'm Mel Hauser. I use she, they pronouns and I'm executive director here at All Brains belong. Let me share screen and get us oriented. Always easier said than done. Okay. Zoom, motor planning. So I'm very excited about tonight's Brain Club. I think you're gonna like it. We're gonna be doing our monthly book chat. Tonight we'll be discussing The Rainbow Brain by Sandhya Menon. All right, so. Well, a question. I can't find the rainbow brain anywhere but Australia. Yes, it's an Australian author. How did you get it though? It's not on Amazon UK or US. I ordered it directly from her website. But the good news is that she is gonna read us the whole book tonight. We're gonna watch like the, so you're gonna get to read it. Good. And we'll also put the link in the chat for anybody who would like their own copy. Here we go. So Brain Club. Of course, as many of you are returning to know, this is our education space to educate the community about neurodiversity and related topics of inclusion. This is not a support group, not for medical or mental health advice. This is for education purposes only. And you can participate however you are most comfortable. You can have video on or off. And even if it's, even if you have your video on, we certainly don't expect anything of you. You know what time out I have to make, I'm gonna make Sarah co-host. Sounds good. Cool. There we go. Perfect. All right. I have the kind of brain that it is, it is hard to speak and read and let in people from the waiting room. So anyway, welcome everybody. So all forms of communication are welcome here. You can unmute and use mouth words. You can type in the chat. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity, it's really important to us that we cue safety by respecting and protecting the group's collective access needs. We do have direct messaging enabled. So if there's anything that you're uncomfortable for any reason, if you can send a direct message to Lizzie, Lizzie, are you around wave? This is Lizzie, our education program's coordinator. So send a message to Lizzie who will see it a lot faster than I will if you need any adjustments made. All right. Close 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 might see the lab transcript closed captioning icon. You might not. Look for the more dot, dot, dot. And she shows subtitles. And you can do the same and she signs up titles if you want to turn them off. Okay. And it's my visual support to open the chat box so I can see if you're using it. All right. So we're wrapping up our month-long conversation on interdependence, the idea of how normal and in fact required it is to rely on other people. And we've talked about unlearning the myths of independence and looked at interdependence in a lot of different settings. And tonight we're going to be, oh, time out. I'm supposed to make an announcement. Thanks for the visual support, Lizzie. We are going to be doing a, every so often, we do special programs during Brain Club that, you know, beyond regular Brain Club. So the next time we're doing that is in September. So we just announced the other day, we're going to be doing a webinar on our, all the things project, everything is connected to everything, improving the healthcare of autistic and ADHD adults. But we're going to walk you through how to make use of the new resource that we just released to the world. So Lizzie, if you can pop the registration link in the chat. Amazing. Thank you. So that should be, that should be great. All right. So I want to tell you about our guest author who's joining us asynchronously because of the time difference. So Sandhya Menon is an autistic and ADHD psychologist based in Australia. She is the author of two children's books, The Brain Forest and The Rainbow Brain. And tonight we're going to have the privilege of Sandhya reading us her book. So Sandhya has a psychology consulting practice. And Lizzie, if you can pop the link to her website in the chat. Thank you. Where she provides neuroaffirming accessible information for kids and families. So this book is amazing. As, as Sandhya describes it, it's about the marriage of autism and ADHD. She calls a rainbow brain. And, you know, I, as someone who has both an autistic and an ADHD brain, sometimes it can be really hard to have a rainbow brain. I have the kind of brain that needs sameness and novelty at the exact same time. It can be really exhausting to have a rainbow brain. And when Sandhya read me her book, I literally cried. It was the most affirming way I had ever seen autism and ADHD and their overlap discussed. I learned something about my own brain in listening to it. And really, I think, I think, I don't know the rest of my sentence, but it's pretty powerful. These were some comments from children about Sandhya's writings, and, and, and, and, and in our prerecorded interview, she'll tell the story of how she came to write these books. Alright, and without further ado, we'll get right into it. So David, take it away. And by the way, so this, this some, this prerecorded interview and read aloud will run about 30 ish minutes. And so we'll have the chat box going as we listen and watch. So I would just, I would love to just share your story. A lot of stories and so many stories. A little bit of a story teller, but I can go random now. Don't we all? Um, yes, I know. So I'll start. Um, I'm going to start at the beginning because that's, that is the very way to start the story from the, from the beginning of time. Um, so I guess I got into psychology because I had a really hard incident happen to me when I was 11. I had a cousin who drowned and died. I was so, was pronounced brain dead. But then we kept him on like support and, you know, we've continued going, which is wonderful. But it was a really, really hard point in my life. Because I was 11, he was 18 months. So I was kind of looking after him. He was like that beautiful like maternal cousin kind of vibe. And that's when I had a lot of emotions and decided I wanted to be a trial psychologist. Because I went to the library. I read all that emotions, what is going on with my body. So that's what staff and me on this journey of wanting to help other children just understand what emotions are because I've been there. I understand how messy and conflict that is. What got me into the field of autism was another cousin of mine was dying, not diagnosed, but very autistic and recognize ADHD. And we were very close. And so I was like, well, I kind of get it. Like, I, I know what this is like. So I started, you know, when I was trying to get more experience, I started in the field of autism. I stayed there because I was happy. I got it. And it was just such a great field to be in. And that landed into my eventual autism identification. ADHD came first for me. Very like ADHD forward. And interestingly, once I was medicated, that's when like more autistic traits started coming out. So, you know, there's a lot of overwhelm because I'm like, wow, look, I can focus now. I can definitely do all the things. And that lend to a lot of sets very overwhelmed and then out. And then I landed up at autism identification. One of the things that, you know, I'm really passionate about is making sure that we don't have to get there. Right. I was at a point where I was just not even functioning in order to get my identification. Like I was throwing out from sensory like input. I was autistic all along. But I was just not recognised. And so, you know, we need to do more in our field to recognise happy autistic. You know, when we're just like stimming with joy. And now I, you know, I advocate really strongly for the next generation. Seeing my son, you know, if I, we had this thing, I don't know if you've got it, but when you drop the vitamins into the water, it comes as a little tablet and it fizzes. And to see him go, you know, just like really happy stims and understanding autistic joy is really nice. So, yeah, that's one of the things that I do now. And manage to summarise my whole good. Not too badly. First of all, I just want to acknowledge, like, just the unthinkable trauma that you went through and how you transformed that to be able to be making such an impact on the lives of children. That's just, I sort of acknowledge, acknowledge all of that. Thank you. So in my primacy and book and like how a family operates is you treat like your cousins as like your siblings. Right. So who I consider my immediate family, like he's part of that. And you know, family dinners, just to see him like screaming and crying and not really understanding why, because we had no access to his inner world back then. So it was years. So I think he only got AC when he was 16 years old. And the accident was when he was 18 months. So that was a really, really long time of, I don't know, I'm just going to try to figure it out. It was very messy and muddy. And you know, that's kind of how I grow up. That's just trying to work it out, trying to be curious about what's going on. So we weren't sure. So now, you know, I work with a lot of distress behaviors. And I get it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I could not agree more. I mean, DSI criteria for autism are autistic stress behaviors. And like, what would this look like to actually for someone to be able to figure out their true self before reaching like such profound states of dysregulation? Yes, I know. Wouldn't that be lovely? As a psychologist, do you interface with colleagues from the old way? Like, do you like, or have you like steered clear? Do you just do your own thing? I always think, you know, I'm really happy to touch. If you're open to learning, I'm not open to having an argument. If you want to, you know, argue with me on that and not take on the information that I'm presenting, then that's a waste of my time. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Who I am really open to is people who have had a little bit about, you know, what a neuro-affirming approach is, acknowledge that it is challenging and are ready to ask their questions. And then I'm really happy to answer them and like to support them and try to identify, hang on, where's that nearly bit for you and how can I change that? I'm really happy to do that. And I'm actually doing that in October. So this is the story of your becoming a clinician. What's the story of you becoming an author? That is a really fun story that is, you know, ADHD and the helm. I just saw, I literally just had a client come in and ask me a question. And that question really niggled at me. She said, some of my classmates don't understand, you know, my client or some of his classmates don't understand him. Can you recommend a book for him to get up to the front of the class and talk everyone about his diagnosis? And I said, absolutely not. No, I cannot do that. Does it exist? Yeah. I mean, it exists. Resources like those exist. No, but they're not good. They're not the messages that you would want to be out there to the class. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some of them are good, but it's just so my niggly bit is I don't think a disabled kid should have to, first of all, share his diagnosis if he doesn't want to, simply because it is bred out of ignorance of his classmates. Yeah. And I think, you know, if he wants to share his diagnosis, he can. But it shouldn't be a mandatory thing. It shouldn't be, I have to tell you about my autism in order for you to be understanding and inclusive. I think inclusion should be at the very heart of our education and support everybody to understand. I think, you know, on a classroom educational level, we should be talking about these differences and how they exist to make our classroom stronger. Yes. Amen. Yeah. So I would love, I would love to know how when you talk about inclusion, what does inclusion mean to you? Yeah. Really good question. And I saw, I saw quite recently really, really struck out. It's, I think belonging is being invited to the party and inclusion is being asked to dance. And I don't think that's right. Because if you think about that party scenario, you can be asked to dance to it and they're like, wow, and I think this is what we're doing. Right? We're saying, while we're asking you along, we're including you. But we're not paying attention to the fact that, you know, maybe it's still too loud. Maybe the party's actually still unwelcoming. Maybe I'm in overload. And so we do these basic things that go, well, I've asked you, I've made these things available, but we don't look at the barriers to accessing them. Amen. So I would argue that inclusion is being part of the planning. Yes. Right? It's having a say in how the party is conducted in the first place. Yeah. So getting to look at, okay, well, where are the safe zones? You know, how do I make sure that I have access to things that help me? How can I make sure that, you know, the music's not too loud? Or, you know, it goes through periods where I feel safer. Those kinds of things, I feel like that is true inclusion. When we invite disabled people to have a say at the table and for it to well and truly be heard. Right? I am a, yeah, I'm a pediatric site and I hear a lot of, well, we have a safe space in the back or we have fidgets in the room. But that's not, that's not it. You can't just say, well, we have fidgets. It's box checking. Exactly. And, but if the child access is the fidgets they're made fun of or, you know, because we don't have that fundamental layer of everyone is safe enough to use these accommodations to, you know, that attitude change needs to be present first, not just the boxes and the things. They hadn't changed their view of the world, which is that there's no right way to be a person. And if you like normalize that for four year olds, like, what a world we would have. Yeah. I know one of the things I really love about this book, and I don't know if you know Yale Clark, she emceed the launch of my brain first. And, you know, she read the book for the first time and she said, this book isn't just for children Sandy. You know, this book was so healing for me to read. And, you know, what I love about them is they are just a really simple English way of kind of boiling down what we know in research, what we know in community conversations to something that's easy to read, it's quick. It's colorful and pretty, which I clearly like. And, you know, it's just a way of bringing joy. And that's one of the things I really wanted to do with these books is make something cool, you know, and just not, you know, I didn't want to just like fiver it and have the book exist, you know, and I said it had to be looking good so people could actually have a resource that they were really proud of. So I realized that when I read this book, it's going to be like Mirren. I don't know if you can change that. But anyway, I'll read it out so you can see the pictures. Come. Okay, well, I'm glad that worked. So this is the brain by brain. What it does is talk about autism and ADHD together in the same brain. Because, you know, so I wrote the brain for us first when I was just identified as an ADHD and then by the time it launched, autism came into the picture. But I wrote it as an ADHD. And then when I was identified autistic, I was like, whoa, you know, I don't know how these rules come together. It's really tricky. And I thought, you know what, if, if I have difficulty knowing, you know, which side like it's autism dominant, what things I do that ADHD dominant, and how I marry those two together, kids would have the same difficulty. So that's what made the rainbow brain. It's like, I'll read it. I feel very much like this is story time, everybody. I love it. Um, great. So actually, I want to read the dedication. It says, to all the amazing ADHDers who have told me that they have rainbow brains. This, this book was named by you and is for you. Thank you for always guiding me. So what, what a lot of children did after they read the brain for us is they identified with so many things on different pages that they finished it and said, I have a rainbow brain. And I go, well, this is clearly the next best, you know, it had to follow. This is your rainbow brain. So while the brain for us is just talking about neurodiversity in general, um, the rainbow brain especially for neurodivergent people to see their brain represented. Um, okay. So I'll actually start reading. I have a lot of side quests in my brain. So deep down in the brain for us, I found the tree that looks like mine. It wasn't like any brain I've seen. It had colors that swelled to combine. So let me see. That's not this one solid color. It's got a few colors going on. This tree was a sight to behold with beautiful shades of blue. But all mixed in with that, there was some fiery red too. This swirling, whirling tree is called autism and ADHD. Those are names for what it's like to have a brain like me. And then you see over here. There's ADHD and autism together. Blue and red, peanut butter and jam, butter and bread, mint and lamb. Will they work together? Amazingly, they just do. Can we know them as one rather than as two? Peanut butter and jam is like my favorite sandwich combination. I think it's powerful. We could be wonderful together and come to know this dance of how two seemingly opposing ideas can work perfectly given the chance. Now we're going to some rules. So autism. I like to know what's coming up. I feel great when things are the same. I plan all the smallest details to keep stress out of my brain. And then we have ADHD. I like life to be interesting and new. I feel bored when things are the same. Details can matter or get tossed aside. Doing what I feel is my aim. How do we marry those two together? And in the rainbow brain, I can deal with change unless a surprising new spring. Given choice, control and time, I'm happy to do new things. This is the ADHD network brain. Representing, it's lovely. So ADHD. My brain likes to go fast and do lots at the same time. A little of this, a bit of that. How I get things done is mine to define. Talking about affirming executive function skills. We have a different way of getting it done. And then we have autism life and that's represented kind of more sequentially. It's like a cog. So my brain needs to go slow. It takes its time to think. There are so many facts gathered to collect, process and see. We're really talking about that detail orientation. I love this little magnifying glass. So ADHD and autism. I learned best with preferred topics. My interest determines my speed. When it's boring, though, I multitask to meet my needs. So we see, you know, a child jumping on a trampoline, a spin, a fidget. It's just kind of nice to have like an ADHD culture represented in books. And so this is the autism page. So my brain does not filter. Taking in most sights and sounds. Being in nature is lovely. But I need help in busy surrounds. So we say, you know, turn down the lights. We can use noise cancelling headphones or we can advocate and ask to meet in a quiet space. So you know, come with me. I can't go there, but we can come here. And ADHD. My brain thinks everything is important. I pay attention to it all. It's easy to forget what it said. I use strategies to help my recall. One instruction at a time. Sit closer to the teacher or I make it visual. I draw and write it down. And this is one of my favorites. This is talking about our emotions. It's just kind of, you know, all the high highs and new, but yes, and the smileys, but also just hang up, we need to slow down. We need to just go bro. So this is the best way that I can represent our emotions. We engage the world with the world so deeply. Our highs are high. Our lows are low. However I am feeling, I allow myself. I've learned to go with the flow. So really thinking about our compassion for ourselves and accepting where we are. Now these colors are swirling together, that are swirling, work together. Don't you see? Want to know another little secret? There may be more colors in your tree. And then we have this, the real rainbow brain, you know, let's talk about our feed and intellectual disability and anxiety and PDA and Tourette's and OCD and giftedness and, you know, while learning challenges. So dyslexia, calculator, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, you know, talking about it's not just autism and ADHD, it's very rarely occurring by itself. But let's learn to look at ourselves more holistically. This is, there are so many different trees and a few of them are rainbow. So yeah, we kind of come back to that brain-first concept of, you know, this is dyslexia, there's neurotypical brains, people with dyslexia or ADHD and then we've got our rainbow brain. We've kind of added those few more colors in there now. I'm learning more about my brain type and with the right supports, I grow. Here are some people that help nurture rainbow brains. If I'm talking about why we see people, right, we have our parents, we have an occupational therapist, we have counselors, animal therapists, we have our teachers, psychologists, that's me. You know, we have support workers who might, um, speech pathologists or art therapists. So really trying to represent, you know, some of the people who we might see. Talking about here are some things that can hurt rainbow brains. Loud noises, bright lights, too many things to concentrate on, having to sit still for a long time. You know, I'm fidgety, I need to move. Sudden changes, rejection, feeling misunderstood and ignoring our body science. That's what I'm being made to really. And here are some things that help rainbow brains. So we have like self-advocacy. I need to play by myself today. It's okay, I'll see you later. And you know, just having that connection, because this is something that I used to do at school. I never played with my friends all the time. But they always gotch that we were still friends. I like to do my own thing a lot of the time. So here are some things that help rainbow brains. Resting when we need. My son came up to me the other day and said, well, I'm feeling very tired because it's the first week of school and I need to cancel my afterschool activities. I'm like, great. I'm telling you this in articulation. A sense of accommodations. So using what we need. We have safe and sane foods. And I had to draw chicken nuggets in this. Like this is a body entity character. I love nuggets. And it like actually says, I love nuggets. I do love nuggets. I'm asking for what we need. Learning about ourselves. Time in nature. Time without interests. And meeting others with rainbow brains. This is all my recommendations usually in reports. And I really wanted to give a none to, you know, we can celebrate rainbow brains. But at the same time talk about how it is a disability and it is really hard. So depicted it this way. Having a rainbow brain is special. But the world can be hard to navigate. See, it wasn't built for rainbow brains. There are still changes we need to create. It's tiring moving through this world. And we need more time to rest. Making space for self care. And the things we love. Help us feel at our best. Chillin out. Because now we know, so happy. Now we know what works for the rainbow brain design. Go build a wonderful life and shine, shine, shine. And that's it. And then I've just kind of got some other terms and further reading if anyone wants to learn more about it. That's the rainbow brain. I don't even know what to say. Like I just feel so incredibly honored to have to have you read this to me. Like it's one thing for me to have like read it on my own, but to have you read it to me like this is like, I think I like this is anyway, I just anyway, like, but people, people want to reduce down to like, well, this is my autism. And this is my ADHD. Anyway, like this was just such a beautiful, like even like the metaphor of color, like, of course, red and blue can become purple. Of course, you can. And I appreciate like all of the little details that went in to just even even what you chose to show as images for these kinds of just, just I am, I am blown away. This is this is just beyond anything. Thank you. That's so nice. I'm so happy. No, that's very kind of you. You know, I like where am I creating this little room? Um, it's just looking at how we represent our culture. And it's so, so nice when that kind of lines with someone else too. All I think about is, you know, first of all me, like, what do I love? I love nuggets. I love fidgets. And then putting that in place like the end product is something that I'm really, really happy with. And when someone else sees that as well, they're like, I love nuggets too. I was like, you have no idea how much I love nuggets. So much. Yes, I know. And, you know, I was going through a really tough year last year with sensory input, particularly around food. And, you know, I would have food put for me. So I couldn't even put, but I would have food put for me and it'd be, you know, a balanced meal. And I'm looking at and I just couldn't eat it. And my husband would look at me. And now he's learned without judgment to just go, do you need nuggets? Just so you can eat, you know, and I'm like, thank you so much because I can't handle this right now. I know that, you know, this food provides nutrients and nutrition. But right now, I need to eat what I can eat. And it's not that late. Nope. Nope. Yeah. Yeah. My husband hasn't figured that out yet. But yes, that resonates with me a lot. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I love the nuggets of bringing us together. Yeah. So my follow up to nuggets is French fries. And so that's, that was my dinner tonight. So it was, yeah. Yeah. Can I, can I kind of get a little bit about my favourite tip? I have to say. Yeah. Yeah. So there is this chain in Australia that exists. I don't know it's outside, but it is, they've thought about their chip design so much. And it's actually, it's not square, it is diamond shape so that the inside is fluffy and the outside is like, crisp. It's like, I love it. Because if you have, like, thought scientifically about how to create the perfect chip in this season, it is so good. Oh, it's just like my favourite tip. Well, that's so interesting. You're making me think about like the physics of chip design, which I'd never thought about. Like that's why waffle fries are so much easier to cook. Wow. This is amazing. Amazing. The science of our food. I'm curious, what, how old is your child before I asked why? I was going to ask you, like, what, what does your child think of your books? Six. Are children of the same age? Yeah. So he actually helped me create the brain for us when he was four, which is amazing. Because, you know, it was created in lockdown and I had him by my feet. I get what I really need to try and get this at. Why don't you draw this idea? And he drew the first sketches and I just sent those sketches to my graphic designer as a turn this into something and it's nice to see the translation. Um, yeah. No, he's very proud of me. Shortly after I learned that I was autistic, I, I, I too, ADHD him first and then, you know, anyway, so, um, drove myself into burnout. And was also like, I also had this, I had a job that was really ruining my life and that further drove me in to burnout and, um, you know, all of that. Anyway, so, um, got really bad. Had a, I'd never, I mean, I'm more of a, I'm a meltdown dysregulated person, not a shutdown. And I reached a point of dysregulation I had never reached before and I lost the ability to speak. I didn't leave my chair and like, didn't leave my room. Anyway, it was like a big anyway. And then finally, thank God for my rainbow brain, um, that I conceived of my non-profit organization. And that was what pulled me out. And, um, it was, uh, um, a big scramble. And then my then four year old was also sitting at my feet and I gave her the outline of a brain like to like color, like just color while I'm like researching electronic medical records and stuff. And this is what she made. Oh, that's lovely. It's very pretty. Thank you. So she colored a rainbow brain which we drew a house around and we made it our logo. Um, but I so appreciate, I just, I, I really appreciate the opportunity to hear, to hear your story and your journey and thank you for sharing your beautiful book, not just with me, but with the world. It's so incredible. I mean, this is, I mean, when you, when you, when you think about the opportunity, I mean, like when, when you said that people, adults have shared with you that reading the brain forest was healing, I mean, that this, even, even I spend my whole day thinking about the marriage of autism and ADHD, um, even for me, um, I have new insights that I, about my own brain that I didn't have until you said it. So anyway, um, thank you. Thank you so much. That's all right. That's, I love it. I love that. You know, it's, um, it's so amazing to hear like how this book kind of travels and connects people. Um, so in Melbourne, we had, so I wrote the book in, um, in doing lockdown. I mean, you know, we couldn't see people that are just kind of needing a creative space and out, out and lost my train of thought. This is fun. I get it. Oh yes. So what we had in Melbourne, we had a really, really long lockdown. It was 288, 282 maybe days in lockdown. And there was a rule which you couldn't travel outside of your five kilometers radius. So you just had to stay within your neighborhood and that would enable you to get your essentials and things like that. So when I first sat down and predicted where it might go, I was like, maybe I'll go like across the bridge in Melbourne. I was like, if it reached to the other side of Melbourne, that would be great. That would be, you know, my happy place with people all around Melbourne have had it to now we're talking to people all around the world. Which is amazing. I would, um, I have no words really. Um, I, I feel so privileged to have heard Sanda's story and have her read this book to us and share it with us. And so I would love, love to hear any, any other reflections that anyone else has to share. And so I'm just going to watch on there. If you're going to watch the recording when, when the, when the, when it's available. And Lizzie's putting in the chat, the social media links, if you want to connect and maybe Lizzie, can we maybe post like website again and stuff? Because that was like, that was so earlier in the chat. So we'll put websites, book links, social media handles. Marie, you're still muted. There you go. I'm like clicking, try to find the unmute. Hi. So this is actually my first all brains belong. And I'm very excited about this. Um, this book. Wow. Um, I feel like, like I'm going to probably be processing all of this like all week long. Actually, I have therapy tonight. So maybe I'll press it's that with her. But what a wonderful way, because I think so often we see representation of whether it's autism, ADHD or both together, we see the representation of the struggles, but not necessarily like the balance. And that inner conflict that's not always negative, but it's, it is a conflict of interest essentially. And I, I love that. I just got my identification officially for both. And I'm very excited about it. So this was just such a wonderful thing. And thank you so much for us. Yeah, sharing this. What a wonderful time. Thanks. Thank you. Um, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think especially, and honestly, I think it's the healthcare system's fault. Because autism and ADHD are most typically discussed through a deficit based lens, you know, the listing of this of stress behaviors. Of course, of course we hear that more than just even even neutral. We don't even often hear about neutral, let alone joy. Yeah, I 100% agree. I love that. That's a good way to put it is that there was a neutral and the joy in this book. And I just really, I don't have the words around the words. Beautiful. I also really appreciated the part of the book where it, Son, you talked about how like, yeah, there's, there's hard parts, things are really hard. And with an emphasis on the, how hard it is, is relative to how many barriers there are in the environment. And that's what we, of course, we talk a lot about that at Brain Club. Welcome, anyone who's not had a chance to share yet, anything that you'd like to share. Welcome back. Hi, Mal, I have a question. Nice, Cynthia, go for it. I was struggling with the typing. So it seems like the DSM-5 keeps kind of changing a bit. Is that right? Or are they as, as more information comes through is because I'm feeling like, especially when I was going through the diagnosis for my daughter, it was like, she was kind of on the edge of autism ADHD. But then again, listening to the story, she's definitely both, but she's not being classified as autistic. Because like, honestly, I think it has to do with budget. It's not really like, I think it's kind of icky, like the school system. And then I was also thinking about my ADHD and listening to the description in this children's book. And I'm thinking, rethinking my diagnosis. So it's like, how true is this kind of formula that they have for, for saying, okay, you're on this, like, where's that little gray area? Or are you on this side? Are you on this side? Are you just ADHD? Are you, you know, are you also autistic? Like it feels very gray to me. So thanks for naming that Cynthia. What I would say is that what we're really talking about in neurological based differences that aren't disorders, they shouldn't even be in the DSM. And what we'll put in the chat, Lizzie, can you post the link for the stigma of autism talk from April? So this is a several of you have been there. Every April, we give an annual talk about the healthcare system and perpetuating the stigma of autism. And I include going through the history of how autism got into the DSM and the history of how the language changed over time. It's the story of corruption, really. And it's pretty disappointing and was certainly not part of my medical training. I didn't learn that history until I learned I was autistic and autism became my monotropic focus. I learned all kinds of things. But I think like big picture point is that we're really talking about the DSM five. It's not based on additional information that's acquired. It's just a description of stress behaviors. And so all too often, people don't receive an autism diagnosis. And self-identification is completely valid. That's my professional opinion. And I think that not only are there barriers because people charge cash and there's all kinds of things. I have a big PDA response to that whole scene. But also many professionals are trained in that deficit-based lens. And that's all, it's part of the whole, it's a big part of the problem. Sarah, thanks for rescuing me as I was not actually going to wind up without the visual prompts. Like stop talking. Oh, you're doing great. You're doing great. I think just if we can just zoom out a little bit on the DSM. If you look at the DSM and you look at when the DSM explains its own theoretical basis, what it basically says is that what it did, how it basically defines a disorder, is as something that irritates your family or your community and makes it difficult for them. And so they haven't actually done the research to say what is good for human beings. They've just basically said, well, my culture accepts this or my culture doesn't. Or my family accepts this or my family doesn't. And so it's very much a, it's a book that's really, the definition of disorder is really problematic because it's not, there's no science based on like, is this good for human functioning or not? It's just, it's irritating for the basis for a disorder is it's irritating for other people in the culture. And so it doesn't mean like if you have an autism, if you have a quote unquote autism disorder or any other thing, of course you need help. Of course your parents need help because you've got an entire society that's discriminating against you and that's making your life difficult because they do things differently, which you can expect based on the way that natural diversity works. I mean, natural diversity, the normal curve says, you know, 64% of people are going to be within a normal range. And then some of us are going to be a further bit further out there. And then some of us are going to be way further out there. And it's not a bad thing. It's, it's, it's how it's how like evolution hedges their bets against really bad things happening is to have a whole range of diversity. But anyway, I'll shut up there, but it just, it's, of course, parents need help. Of course, people need help. It doesn't, but it's not a disorder. It's like we need people need compensation to help for the way that majority culture doesn't want to change and does not want to the way that majority does the culture does not want to change and does not want to really perplexed to want to just keep doing business as usual and in a way that that shuts other people out. Yes, until they need us and then until they need us and we become heroes. And then they, and then, and then we go back to, then they go back to business as usual and throw us out as soon as they don't again. You, Sarah, there's a lot of feedback in the chat. I could not agree more. I could listen to you talk all day long. And I could not agree more. And I think, and as a comment Sierra shared that I think is also really important to add when you zoom way out and you think about all of the oppressive power systems, all the isms that all go together, racism, ageism, ableism, all the isms, what Sierra is pointing out about the effecting your ability to be productive in school or work as a defining characteristic of most all disorders in the DSM. So this is all embedded in power systems, where when we start talking about groups of people, in terms of measuring their value, according to what we produce, that's gross. That's just so gross. And I think that's why we have so many adults who are needing to unlearn those narratives. And that's certainly one of the functions of brain club is to collectively unlearn that narrative that says that you your value comes from what you what you produce as opposed to who you are. I guess it's just frustrating because you know that the dollars that she's going to need to get through are directly linked to all of this. And you're, you know, you're one person against this whole system. And it's really talking about in 2023. We don't have universal design in most contexts and places. That's why so often at Auburn's Belong, we speak about neuro inclusion. We speak about and like, you know, when I do trainings for healthcare providers or employers, like, I'm not talking about this is what you do for those for those people who may or may not be autistic or ADHD, like this is what you do to create spaces and cultures for people with all types of brains to thrive. Because it would be really like, like the fact that you need a medical person to label a thing that's not a disorder with a diagnostic label that they don't actually understand that is based on stereotypes and a narrative that, you know, was created in the 1900s and is still here and is not based on the scientific understandings of autism that you need that in order to get a level playing field is just wrong. And as Monique said in the chat, the DSM arose in the same era. So you're right. So so when when we when we talk about, you know, all of the health inequities and all of the like the impact of all of all of the ways in which, you know, humans are othered, you know, for race for gender for sexuality, like, you know, think about think about even the evolution of the DSM in terms of like, you know, sexuality was like, you know, the DSM is supposed to evolve. And this I'm hopeful that one day will also evolve. Just just so the person who's just a comment, I just really want to acknowledge and I forgot your name, but the person who's talking about their daughter. And of course, I mean, as a parent, it's heartbreaking. And you think your kid, yes, your kid is going to need all sorts of funding and all sorts of support to get through and and go for it. And in whatever way you can get them whatever diagnosis or whatever funding you can get them, like absolutely go for it. And at the same time, like climate change brought to you by mainstream culture, you know, insurrection brought to you by mainstream culture, you know, a bunch of other crap brought to you by mainstream culture, you know, mass shooting brought to you by mainstream culture. So, you know, the so the so the fact that so all of this stuff that they're, you know, all of the the funding you're getting is to make your kid that meant to make your kid fit better into mainstream culture, which is creating all sorts of effing pathology that that further further for both in it's a culture, which is creating a pathology late in culture and killing the planet. So, you know, please hold it with a grain of salt too. I mean, that that's that would anyway, that's that's my both and perspective. Amen. And when we think about, you know, what what is one of the things that that we can do now is, you know, teaching teaching kids about their brains. And we all have different brains. We all have different brains that learn, think, communicate differently. We have certain patterns of differences. We sometimes call it things. That's all. And, you know, I think that this, I've really appreciated this conversation. And I think it, it also sets us up to bridge to next month's brain club topic. We're going to be revisiting the double empathy problem. The double empathy problem is a term coined by Dr. Damian Milton, who's an autistic social scientist in the UK. So this term was coined decades ago, referring to the fact that it's not that there's one normal type of social skills or thinking skills and then there's autistic people. It's that when there's a mismatch of worldview and communication style, that is where misunderstandings happen. And that autistic autistic people communicating with other autistic people. That's that that goes well. And non autistic people struggle to perspective take autistic people just as much in the other direction. And so here we have a medical system with a narrative that like doesn't say that it's that there's normal, a normal social set of social skills, a normal way of interacting. We did a group medical visit last time we were looking, looking at looking at this and like it's gross you read these criteria and they're just gross. And I think the double empathy problem is, is something that, you know, allows us to understand all that goes wrong in healthcare, in education, at the workplace. And so we hope you'll join us next Tuesday. We'll talk about the double empathy problem. We're going to talk about the double empathy problem in relationships next week. All right, thanks everyone. Have a great week. Bye.