 Hello everybody. I'm Mel Hauser. I use sheet A pronouns and I'm executive director here at All Brains Belong. Welcome to Brain Club. Let me share slides and I'll get us oriented. So if I never click the things in the order that results in actually sharing slides, here we go. So today we're kicking off our new monthly theme on understanding your access needs. This of course is Brain Club. Our weekly community education space for the broader ABB community to educate about neurodiversity and topics related to inclusive community. Just a reminder or maybe this might be new information if you're new to Brain Club. This is for education purposes only. This is not a support group and it's not for medical or mental health advice. All forms of participation are okay here at Brain Club. You can have your video on or off and even if it's on we don't expect anything of you. We certainly don't need you to sit still or look at the camera or anything. Feel free to walk, move, fidget, stim, eat, all the things. Do what needs doing. Everyone's welcome here and all formats of communication are welcome here. You can unmute and use mouth words. You can type in the chat box. We will have a portion of today's Brain Club with a prerecorded video of multiple community members sharing their experiences. So that'll be during that time. We'll have just the chat box going but we'll also have plenty of time for discussion afterwards. In addition to affirming all aspects of identity, it's really important to us that we respect and protect the group's collective access needs. And individually, we do have direct messaging enabled. So if you're uncomfortable for any reason, Lizzie are you around or are you at a place where you could wave, hi, great. That's Lizzie, our education burners coordinator. So if you send Lizzie a direct message, she will see it sooner than I will. So if you need anything, if you're uncomfortable for any reason, just send Lizzie a private message. Okay, speaking of collective access needs, in order to cue safety for a broad range of communication access needs, we will periodically pause today to give extra space and time for folks to join in whatever way works for them. I think that we all have different access needs. We'll talk about that today. And we definitely want to give space so that while there's no pressure to directly communicate during Brain Club, we want to make sure that anyone who wants to is able to join in the conversation. And sometimes that's hard to do. It's hard to do that when there's like not so much space. Okay, last word about 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 might see the lab transcript closed captioning icon. And if not, look for the more dot dot dot and choose show subtitles. You can do the same and choose hide subtitles if you want to turn them off. And that's my visual support to open up the chat box. So now I can see it if anybody's using it. All right, so as I said, we're kicking off our theme of the month understanding your access needs. And today in particular, we're going to be talking about the role of Brain Club in particular in helping folks understand access needs. We'll be hearing from several of our community members about their experiences and then asking you what you think. We'll continue the theme next week in discussing access needs and health care, followed by access needs and employment. All right, so if you've spent any time with any all brains belong program, you know, we talk a lot about access needs here. And that's because the art community advisory board that informs all of our programs a year or so ago, I asked, how will we know that our community has become more neuro inclusive? And if you can just take a quick glance at this, access needs comes up so many times. And so really for the past year and a half, we've been talking about access needs everywhere we go and everything that we do, because it's really, really important. Access needs are anything required to meaningfully and fully participate in one's environmental community. Everyone has access needs. Everyone with all types of brains has access needs. It's just that neurodivergent folks are less likely to have our access needs met by the defaults of society. There's all kinds of access needs, physical, emotional communication and so on. And what we talk a lot about here at Brain Club is how all of those things play out in everyday life. And it's interesting and as part of our video we'll be watching, you'll hear more about the origins of Brain Club and how it got started, why do we create the program? How did it evolve over time? But it was kind of an accident. But the original mission of Brain Club was to provide language to help people understand their access needs and how they play out in everyday life. And Lizzie pulled some numbers for us. Thanks Lizzie. So we've had almost 1200 total participants in Brain Club since its origins from five countries across three continents. Pretty cool. I found that data surprising. Pretty cool. And a lot of, though of course there's a different theme of the month every month, you know some of the same themes keep coming up. And Lizzie's gonna put in the chat for those of you who don't know, all of our recordings dating back to January 2022 when we began, they're all available for free on our website. And so though there's lots of content from old Brain Clubs that they resurface from time to time, there's still a lot of treasures that folks may not have seen. So check it out. All right. So understanding the impact of Brain Club, and I know that some of you are brand new to Brain Club, some of you have been here since the beginning and lots of people in between. But what we're about to watch is about a 30 minute collection of community panelists, both who've been participating from the beginning and who are new to Brain Club, sharing what their experiences are. And a long way, love to hear reactions, comments in the chat box. And then as I said, we'll have plenty of discussion after the video panel. All right, David, take it away. Feel so very comfortable, right from the welcome to the community standards or agreements, I'm not sure of the terminology you use, the format, like the whole container and the whole the way that people participate and interact. It's really respectful. Nobody offers me advice. People just listen, cheer, like the whole culture that you've cultivated. It's so easy. Like it's just like I, I exhale, like I landed in your group and I exhale. And I've been telling everybody about it. I've been like, this is just wild. I do feel like it's so different from other groups I've been a part of where like it's an evening time. I'm not typically somebody who wants to join things in the evening time. I'm usually with my family. And I love that in Brain Club. I can have my family with me. They can be on my lap. I can be making dinner. I can be eating dinner. And I think that really makes it unique compared to typical things I've been a part of. I also feel like there's no judgment if I have my screen off. Like I've had times where I turn down the volume and talk to my family, turn back up the volume and tune back in. And that ability to kind of come in and out as it serves me, I think is really unique to Brain Club. And that that's not only welcome, it's invited behavior as like an accepted and celebrated way of showing up. Thank you for saying that. I mean, I think that we try very much to like explicitly cue safety by normalizing all the very normal human life things. And I think there are settings where it would be okay to do all of that. But if you don't say it, you don't norm it. If you don't norm it, then there are lots of brains who don't know it's okay. Because of all the environments where it's not okay, where there's like shame for like, what do you mean you're drinking coffee during a Zoom meeting? I think Brain Club has been similar in that it's just it's exposing me to people being so, so beautifully raw and authentic. So do you have a place where I'm not masking and I'm not acting and I'm not spending over half of my mental energy trying to figure out what they expect from me? No, I don't have that anywhere else. Recently there was sort of like a like a video clip going around the internet and it's Renee Brown. And I like her okay, but I like her most when she's talking about when she's kind of like defining core things in contrast to other core things. And so in this video clip, she talks about the difference between belonging and fitting in. And she actually says the research says that the opposite of belonging is fitting in because you are changing yourself to fit the norms of the already established group. And what I realize now is I spent my whole life trying to fit in to belong. But when I'm fitting in, I don't get to be myself. I get to be like the version of the outside world of trying to and how much anxiety that has cost me and how exhausted I am. And that to be in a community where I get to explore and learn about my brain and other people and other people's brains and that there's a continuum like that is not ending. It's like just dyspraxia is like this new idea for me even, you know, and it's like I'm learning how to integrate that into my movements and into my life. I have been, I've had autism since birth, but I haven't had the words for it or the understanding that this is my experience. So I'm doing a bit of time traveling. I'm going back many decades and I'm realizing that's why I did that. That's why I responded that. That's why I needed it to be that way. And when it wasn't that way, that's why I melted down. That's why I ran away. Like it's all making so much sense now. And it's both a relief and it's also a source of sorrow. Like wow, like I'm, I'm rejoicing and I'm mourning at the same time. Yeah. That resonates with me so much. It's like it's, it's, it's, it's all of the, you know, like the rewriting of decades. I have sorrow, I have rage, I have like all of that at the same time of like relief and you know, like all of that. All my life I felt broken, lost and like a failure. Always thinking I was too much hating myself and wondering how others did life so easily. When we tell sweet little loves that the way that we are intuitively feeling in our bodies is wrong because there's a just so way to be. What do we expect is going to happen? When I realized I was an autistic ADHD year, I finally felt whole and loved myself for the first time in my life. ABB's resources and community have helped me bloom into my true self and made me feel like I finally truly belong. I was looking for a community of like-minded individuals so that I could share my experiences and learn and I have found that in all brains belong. I'm really enjoying going to the weekly brain club meetings and talking with other people that are neurodivergent and also particularly our parents. Behaviors, things we can observe that communicate someone's underlying physiologic state. I'm learning new strategies on how to communicate better for my kids and advocate for my children in school systems. A big part of my motivation in trying to find answers for all of this is so that my kiddos don't have to deal with that so that they have a safe space to fall apart, break down, be dysregulated, feel all the feelings, but also like feel the joy. Oh my goodness. I think it's helped me recognize so many, you know what I think so much of what we do like when we're talking about neurodiversity is we identify like that's ableist and this is wrong and that's a problem and I think one of the things that makes brain club really unique is it not only names the thing and names the problems but it also offers strategies to do it better and I think that's just so unique. So like in my own family it's not just saying this kind of parenting might not be the most effective or helpful for doesn't feel good for me and it probably doesn't feel good for my kids but it's also inviting me to parent in a way that I maybe hadn't thought about and people sharing their experiences doing that and I think it's helped me get a little more experimental in my parenting in ways that feel more authentic and I think have helped me and helped my kids a lot. I met Mel Hauser a couple years ago on the Statehouse lawn and from Mel I heard the term access needs for the first time in my life and that same day in texting with my family I was able to create space for myself within my family for the very first time and I am 52 years old. Yeah that's the story. Brain Club was not something we ever planned. It was like this we have to give language to this experience of showing up and feeling like you don't have to like run through the checklist of like what are they expecting of me and you just the more people who are talking about what's going on and they're for themselves authentically and then somebody's like oh me too and you're like oh yeah me too and then you're like oh I feel like I belong and it just happens. Yeah I think that's that that was my that has been my experience of the Brain Clubs is that so first of all my first experience of the Brain Club was kind of like the radical idea of having being able to honor like different communication styles like it turns out that I like typing in the chat way more than talking because I can because I can express myself exactly the way I want to and I'm not as dysregulated and I'm not thinking about like oh what are people thinking of me right now and oh is my eye twitching and things like that and and then so I would just kind of like put random thoughts in the chat and get like immediate validation or I would get like oh that's why I think that about that thing and then and then I would be reading in the chat and then this the same thing would get mirrored back to me where somebody else would say something and it would be just like a huge light bulb for me and then like that was happening multiple times over the course of each Brain Club to the point where I'm just like oh this is a lot coming in but in a good way and and that exchange absolutely builds trust um because the space allows that and I can't think of many spaces in life that um that allow for people to um to come together in this way and kind of like this radical act of trust like how that means so much to me I mean so much to me but like when you when you when you really think about it right I mean it's it's it's like radical trust radical reimagining of building trust in other people in this way that like most of us have never experienced before and at the same time what we're doing is not rocket science it's actually not that hard to help people feel like they belong um one of the gifts that all brains belong has given to me and I think so many other people is is a common language based on common experience that we didn't know existed before and when we can see ourselves reflected in the stories of other people we become more okay with ourselves and so that that I think is the is the magic and community and communication you know they sound they sound very similar and um and we promote both in an accepting um village of people um you know I had never heard anyone else talk about their their um their burning hatred of leaf blower noise and when I heard that I was like oh oh my gosh that's me too someone becomes more familiar with their own experience when they hear someone or read someone describe it and you're like oh that that matches but like I didn't necessarily have words to describe how that was yeah like totally that happens like that's what brain club is like that's what group medical visits are like that's that's what we do all day here um but like it and and um it's interesting I'm gonna go back and um and and and dig this up but um we actually recorded we had the presence of mind to record not knowing what we would ever do with it but we recorded a um a conversation between our former board chair Hannah Bloom myself and Lizzie our education programs coordinator we were we were debriefing our first vaccination clinic and we're you know it was like it was like post post clinic like let's let's have a meeting and like see what we would do different next time and so even if kids are not able to receive the vaccination because limbic system says no I think it's you know reframing what success is you know success is not always just getting the vaccine success is wow you recognized when you didn't feel safe and you honored your internalized signal of threat like isn't that what we want it's a good thing when people have a positive health care experience like defining like the connection of you know I formed some sort of memory that wasn't awful the more that that pattern goes right those neurons that fire together the more they do that the more that pathway pathway is accessible and has ease there's no ease in that pathway for a lot of our nervous systems right now because there has been no autonomy because there's been no agency there's been no freedom in choice you know we realized we had to start talking about these concepts we had to give people language for their experiences and that that was how brain club was born welcome everybody welcome to brain club brain club is like a great innovation and like open to the public and the chance for like you know a robust discussion about bring the spectrum of life issues so we're not further ado let's talk about some lid flipping once yeah or twice or like a million times you know that some people think that they're the only ones who flip their lid did you know that no some people think they're the only ones and they like they like they feel bad about themselves because they're the only one yeah i'm not alone in that particular journey it's it's helping to hear other people share because it's building up my my language my communication skills it's also um smoothing out the rough edges of my experiences and of my perceptions i'm less harsh on myself i'm less sharp with myself like it's just kind of creating a glow like a smoothness around my experience right it's it's most of the patterns of my life have when it comes to social situation social situations has been me coming into a group kind of going oh crap how do i fit in here you know what are the norms what do i have to figure out you know who's got the most power in this situation who's the person who's left out what are the dynamics here and i'm in a panic trying to assess the social dynamics as quickly as possible and i and when you're in when you're in a state of belonging you're not doing that you're just kind of like in a heart space um and i've been thinking about that because i think what what all brains belong is is the possibility of belonging in a in a way that other places have not been for me and i wonder if that resonates for for you and for other people i mean it's interesting like in in like doing the work of showing up like showing up authentically and having other people also show up and over time and not even over time like it it happened pretty quickly like people show up and you're like hey let's be authentic and they're like i don't know how to do that but okay i'll hear you out i also feel like there is that bringing of my personhood in brain club that i don't do in other settings where it's so important to allow difference to be a wonder and allow yourself to be different within even your relationship to someone who knows themselves to be different and to be curious and to ask questions instead of presume we're all in this together as individuals that you know that sees things differently here things differently and moves things differently to me the broader public that are you know parents and autistic individuals that knew about me that i'm very very compassionate supportive and i do take the leadership role when necessary to support those individuals that may not have a voice they may even know how to speak you know with their voices or they may not understand what we're talking about because that's not that's not the way our brains act in reality work you know everybody's brain is thinks differently and acts differently and for the autistic community uh it's about you know understanding other people's brains works and how to connect with that brain and they meet and having a meaningful conversation and discussion within that brain pattern of an autistic individual other than that it basically means that my brain has differences in the way that it works and processes information there are some things that it does really well there are some things that it really sucks at but fundamentally i don't look at my autism as anything that needs to be cured i look at it as a part of the natural standard deviation in terms of what is normal you talk a little bit about the strengths and the challenges that you feel like go along with being autistic the biggest you know brain strength is insight and knowledge you know a world around me plus the environment if it's toxic or welcoming and you know for me that's my that's my biggest strength is you know my brain is thinking fast on its feet and how and the way it sees the world's perspective view my brain's weakness is is trying to comprehend or doing doing too much over writing comprehending the situation and trying to analyze it in its own way but there's too much you know background brain status noises that it makes it hard for my brain to comprehend on what to focus on knowledge is everything knowledge is well insight insight is everything because of when you have the insight i can i can automatically forgive myself for all the sins i thought i committed but actually never did brain club has given me words for experiences that i didn't have words for before one example that jumps to mind is autistic burnout is something that we talked a lot about in brain club and i've had not experiences having autistic burnout myself but in my family experiencing autistic burnout and i felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and feeling understood in these experiences that i know one in my life had ever related to those experiences before and i remember there was one brain club in particular where i hadn't turned my screen off and just like cry like i just felt like this is so deeply validating in my soul in a way that i had never had anyone validate that experience before because neurodivergent burnout is no joke you know hot flashes chills appetite in the in the trash can fogginess just all of those things coming together and and you know now i look back on my life and i'm like i was tired and foggy when i was 18 my story with autistic burnout to me to explain to somebody with no experience it would take me sorry i'm thinking everywhere it would take me paragraphs to explain that to somebody and still i'd walk away feeling like i don't really know if they get what i'm talking about at all i can unmask i can talk in the shorthand people understand what i'm saying without me having to explain a whole backstory like to be understood and to be seen and to be accepted and welcomed and encouraged to participate it's just it's all the things as you like to say it's all the things and this is like you know there are two words and people are like oh yeah i get it that's it and i feel like that's just one example of some of the language that brain club has given me to talk about things like my family uses so many words and like my kids talk about flipping their lids and they they can do hand gestures when they can't articulate it with words and and it's just like all these like there's a there's a shared language that the language is just like the top surface level of what really is shared like it's rooted deeply in a shared understanding of the world but just having those words it's so powerful to have words to share that experience we have to give people language to talk about these things because they are universal and yet we didn't grow up with any language to understand these things name these things experience these things um work with these things yeah yeah and i think language can be like underestimated like people think like it's just words and but i think when you don't have the words for something when you get the words like it's i think it it just it makes things feel okay when you have words to just say what they are like it i don't know it makes them feel shared and connected and not so alone and isolated when you don't have words to describe them and i'm extremely socially isolated my world is a four block radius pretty much and so i'd like to say that i think the most one thing that's been really important to me is i'm not tired after brain club i'm actually revived like it's refreshing because it's easy to be there so to find something that is engaging and fun and interesting but doesn't exhaust me doesn't doesn't tire me period like not at all it gives me spoons if anything you know and forks and some knives and a ladle i think being in a neuro mixed family there is this ableist assumption that like neurodivergent folks have access needs and neuro typical folks don't and i think just coming to an understanding of you have needs i have needs all of our needs are valid and recognizing my own has helped me not i hope i think not not make my other people in my life feel so othered by their needs by kind of owning mine and using that as a communication tool to talk about mine and talk about theirs and i think it helps me not place blame on one person for their needs to kind of recognize what my own are and i think that's been really helpful in reshaping the way that i think about my family and the way that i think about like the needs of each person in my family as being all important and all priorities and all equal in what they are but i think when you only name the needs of one or two people in your family it automatically creates tears and i think having words for access needs and starting to know what those are a helps them be met and b helps make me better at meeting other people's needs and so the fact that i'm sort of like understanding the importance of safety as a need for me now at this point in my life is really allowing me to take some risks and trust some people and try to figure out what is the more authentic for me just by understanding what the scope of safety is this amazing and i wonder how how for you does that connect to because i mean when you spoke about trust and trusting other people it's like like the experience of belonging like like like what's the relationship between for you like belonging and the safety now that you know you need and are seeking like those things connected on yeah i absolutely i think i think they absolutely go together and i think what's um i think more than that too is that i'm able to um now that i'm aware of it i'm able to voice that for my kids who are dealing with similar neuroception like i'm able to go into their spaces their activities their schooling and say like this is this is what they need let's figure out how to create it i don't know i mean for for for me as a parent being surrounded by other people who see the world as i do or like want to see the world as i do that's what that that's what allows me to unlearn or question assumptions or whatever i don't feel like i'm like making it up because i'm surrounded by other people who get it did you have that before brain club like did you have it no i think i think part of it for me is that like you're saying people who i wouldn't say for me it's been people who share the way i see the world necessarily as people who share the way i want to see the world and what i want the world to be and i feel like i feel like there isn't a good space to dream like that in the in the real world and i think brain club has made me feel like there are new possibilities that i hadn't even had the idea to dream of before brain club and i feel like having those conversations with people makes me realize what i want things to look like and feel like and then start on that path try and make things closer to that dream thankful for the people that that show up and not just you know i what am i trying to say the people that show up in all the ways that they show up oh that's beautiful no it's exactly right it's like it's not all brains belong doesn't do the thing all brains belong um provides a structure and framework for the people the you know the village members to like rally together in this like you know this this beautiful community of of doing it differently of reimagining like you said and you know reimagining a better life i want to share a couple of things with you before we open this up for conversation so um um a year ago um in october of 2022 we did a brain club on neuro inclusive social space and we introduced this framework of what creates neuro inclusive space three things one setting ground rules two explicitly normalizing diversity and three normalizing access needs and navigating conflicting access needs because it's inevitable and um uh and so a year ago we also we had a kids program in person in the woods um and we would write these things out with with pictures to demonstrate them like on the cement um because it really makes a huge difference and even even teaching young kids you know five to ten year olds about this is it's just part of the key of the universe so i'm going to share some quotes um from another uh community member ground rules there's something very reassuring about that way of grounding us each time as we begin and i think we we heard that from several several folks in the video normalizing diversity no right way to participate i feel liberated by being accepted as i am say because i'd rather respond to questions in writing or knowing that i can be fully present in the session of brain club without having to say anything reading the chat box is evidence of the heartfelt and mutually supportive sparklings of insight that are constantly happening but without the spoken words that tend to dominate most group discussions elections on connecting with other brain club participants i learned so much from hearing other brain club participant stories sometimes because i recognize in them things i experienced myself sometimes because of just appreciating the variety of ways people can be in the world and still belong this one i end up more open to the wholeness of myself and others inside and outside of brain club uh specifically related to understanding one's access needs like a lot of people throughout my life i knew that many things weren't working for me i never thought of this as relating to access needs though i thought i just had character flaws i now see a lot of this as simply reflecting the ways a brain like mine would raggedly interact with a neurotypical world i wonder if anyone whether you're new to brain club even if this is your first brain club or you've been here since you know almost two years um i'd love to hear how how does this resonate um how does what's what's it like to experience brain club for you laura shares in the chat there aren't words that describe my gratitude for this community my human deeply loves the humans here jay hi there um i don't know if we're supposed to raise our hand before we talk but uh you could or you could not anything goes awesome um i'm just feeling really grateful for um being in a space where there are a lot of neurodivergent people all sharing their experiences because i find that in my work i'm usually in spaces with very neurotypical people who don't understand um access needs and um it's just nice to be in a space where i feel like i can say something and everyone will will kind of understand it it's just great to to feel that way that's the same reason that i participate in like non-binary um affinity groups where like trans and non-binary people are like in the majority so it's like really nice to like feel like i'm not the only person in the room with they them pronouns speaking of which loving all of the people with they them pronouns um and feeling very supported and seen by all of the all of the folks who um who have they them after their names um so thank y'all for being here awesome jay thank you so much for being here oh wow christina oh yeah go ahead go ahead sir yeah go ahead i love this i'm so glad i found this um i really enjoy listening to all of the testimonials because really that's what those are and you know they were phenomenal to hear and um excited to have such a safe space for all of this even if you're all in in vermont and so far away not you all but mel i'm so glad you're here seara reading in the chat christina says one of the very first truly safe places i have ever been in bruna says it's a lot of validation and hearing and reading people's experiences that reflect my own in so many ways i felt alone for so many years and not knowing why i suffered in the many ways that i do something needs with me for now michelle well i just wanted to say what i have found very moving here is that there are little kernels of truth that have been sprinkled throughout the panel and throughout the chat and they're just mind altering or life altering and they're like i don't know it's like looking through a crystal or something they're they just make you see the world differently and thank you for that thank you i truly appreciate it michelle i just want to pause with that i mean that's um you know what that's my brain is connecting all the things to all the things um it it reminds me of we had a panelist in april um it was a panel about the experience of becoming identified autistic as an adult and the panelists said that learning that they were autistic was like a kaleidoscope like coming into view so just like the idea of like clarity um and i i i i i so feel like it's community it's coming together it's belonging that is what allows people to shift their own narrative it's just that clarity comes the clarity is the shifting of your own narrative and you do that in community right thank you thank you for sharing that thank you kim says brain club is one of the few spaces in my life where i am out as neurodivergent and i feel so free i don't have to spend half my time and all my energy making my communication palatable and pleasing for others i can focus on i can focus on the experience of being here rather than contorting myself into some other person to earn acceptance oh thank you kim and when i'm glad you can access this from vancouver bc as well i just want to create space for anyone who has not had a chance to share either in the chat or out loud um just want to invite anyone to share and um as as as laura says the the the silence is okay and so much so like i think that there are without that silence like it's hard it's hard for lots of brains to even like process and then join in a conversation because it moved it moved on already um and so creating creating space for that to bring in the chat and says i really like hearing everyone here that in a neurotypical setting wouldn't likely be heard or cut off yeah kale says for a while now i've been trying to find more people like me people i can relate to and i finally found something i can be a part of it's amazing i'm so glad you're here shell well i had a question and maybe it's just me um but sometimes not right now because we're we're doing things fairly slowly but i sometimes have a hard time keeping up with a chat and a main panel or a main presentation at the same time and i'm just wondering um um do other folks in this club feel that way or i i mean i think the way things are presented here it's okay because you don't feel like you've missed out um but i think like in the neurodiversity summit sometimes or in other webinars i felt like there's too much coming at me i cannot do this all at once um so to me that's an access need and i think i i think this club is good in dealing with that because it doesn't feel like there's an expectation that you're keeping up with the main stage and everything else yeah yeah thanks thanks michelle i think what you're really what you're calling to mind this is an example um uh you're really talking about conflicting access needs okay so and so what conflicting access needs are is that two people have needs that are opposite because there are just as there are so many people for whom um you know the onslaught of like multiple channels it's like well um there there are other brains that need the rapid fire um otherwise the attention is lost um and need to impulsively um you know like me i only need to impulsively communicate or i'll lose it i'll lose the idea because working memory so the chat is a place that i can impulsively communicate without um like interrupting someone so it's really about and as sarah says moving at the pace of each other thanks allison um it's um it's it's it's really and it's and it's and and as need is referring yes sierra that used to be a thing i would read out everything with a live panel and a live this and so um pre-recorded panels is a way of um negotiating conflicting access needs i can't facilitate conversation and a panel and a chat and so that's why we do it this way we didn't use stew for almost all of brain club if you can believe that um and as the group got larger it just became like how we're gonna do that and so i i i would say that part of neuroinclusive space as and again it's all an act of like community co-creation but i i think it's the idea that nothing is the default it's the idea that there's like and i i wouldn't it's interesting like you know i i i the term main stage i'm thinking like you know coming to the concert it's on the main stage as opposed to the side stages but i don't actually even think that that the zoom central screen is the main stage i think many people would say that the chat is where their action is and so it's like offering multiple ways to participate so you can participate by um widely watching a panel you can participate by like you know sending you know 50 chat messages an hour you can and i think that um one of the reasons that reading all the chat boxes out it's like the um it made it made the set it made there be a main stage right now there are truly multiple ways to participate sara thanks yeah i was just gonna um share i i shared this story recently at a meeting but um i wanted to share it with um everyone at brain club too um i think when we talk about having language to um explain our experience um sharing that with our children and giving our children language to explain their experience from such a younger age than so many of us have had it um and i just think about like it it's so powerful to me and i um and the story is that um my eight-year-old uh grabbed a piece of paper when he was seven so last year you know after my involvement with all brains belong and um and he wrote in his own handwriting um come in my brain belongs and put it on his door to his bedroom and it's still there and um you know i mean just like the power in that that a child would feel you know so powerful i love the heart that's awesome um that they would feel that you know like from a young age like understanding that their brain belongs and that there isn't one right way to have a brain to think about things and to learn and to communicate i love that sarah i come from a family who were just brushing the surface on how many individuals in my genetic family three are very likely neurodivergent in some or many ways and unfortunately where i see it the most is um my mother's parents and their denial of their neurodiversity and their intensity on masking has caused so much anxiety in in their family and uh now it's up to me and my brother and those who are doing our best to like unlearn some of that stuff and it is so heartening to know that this generation after us even even though i don't have any kids of my own this is my kid oh well sorry once this is my kid i don't know what side i'm not mirrored anymore i wanted y'all to see my shirt um anyway but yeah there's so much unlearning of trauma we all are doing and it is so awesome when we see something as healing as here thank you so much and you know i i think what you just said there is is it's that unlearning and so not only you know to quote liz of the radical act of trust but it's the radical act of trust in community to arrive at clarity of one's own narrative and to be able to unlearn the rest so to wrap us up i'm gonna um i'm gonna play a quick video impulsively because i think i think this is the future my sister uh it's not allowed i don't my sister went to stealthy's night and she had a lot of fun because she herself you want to show him bunny hi i am spencer and this picture i made uh the mega mushroom for mario represents all brains belong you see there's the big uh yeah the big house and the brain in it because really all brains belong and i honor that so this is my picture so yeah so with that thank you all so much for being here thank you for being part of our community and we'll look forward to seeing you next week discussing access needs and health care thanks everybody and thank you so much to our panelists