 Welcome, welcome to Brain Club. I'm Mel Hauser. I use she they pronouns. I am a white person with short brown hair wearing a gray shirt that says be you with all of the will be the icons from inside out on it. And we're very, very, very excited to have you join us here. And let's get started. Here we go. Let me share screen and get us oriented to brain club. I don't want to share it. I want to, I want to. There we go. Oh, technology. So, um, welcome to brain club. I, it's nice to see so many familiar names and faces and meet so many new people here joining us too. So brain club is our intentionally created education space for the collective ABB community for purposes of providing education about neurodiversity and related topics of inclusion. Although brains belong does run other types of programs that provide medical and mental health advice and support group space. This is not one of those programs. This is an education program for educational purposes only. All forms of participation are okay here. 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 any of any of those other neuro normative constructs. So please feel free to walk or move or fidget or stem or eat, take breaks, whatever, whatever needs doing. Welcome and all formats of communication are welcome. You can unmute and use mouth words. You can type in the chat. We also have private messaging or direct messaging set up. So you're welcome to send private messages to me if you want to ask a question that way I will read your name out. And in addition to affirming all aspects of identity it's really important for us to cue safety to all people just by being aware of everyone else's access needs and creating space for everyone to participate and make sure that if you are naming something that is distressing to you that we're discussing the impact of your experience is not the specific events. Because our goal is to create a space where all people feel safe and where all people can come together to collectively learn and unlearn. And for many to experience something that's quite different from the outside world, which is why we try to facilitate it the way the way that we do. 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 might see the live transcript closed captioning icon. If not choose more dot dot dot choose show subtitles you can also choose 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 window in case anybody's using it. Oh, lots of people are using it. Hello everybody. Okay. All right, so last last last bit. We've been really thrilled that so many of you have lately joined our spread the word team this is the group of volunteers who helps to spread the word about our mission and our free programs and social media and all the things so we would love love if anybody else would like to join join that group. And if you would like to as Sarah's got a link in the chat for folks to sign up for that. Thank you. Okay, so we are continuing our January 2024 theme of the power of community. And so, oh, thanks Lizzie Lizzie put a link to the newsletter that's awesome, but that'll become our monthly newsletter will be coming out in two weeks. I didn't know that was there. Great. All right. I guess I have one more announcement is that we are starting to put together our brain club lineup for the rest of the winter. And we have a call for panelists. We have we have a lot of really cool panels planned and we'd love love to invite any of you who'd like to be involved. In particular, we'd love to include the perspectives of teens employers or employees sharing real life examples of getting their access needs met and what usually is involved is we compensate you for your time. And you meet with a number of our staff and chat for 10 or 15 minutes and we give you questions in advance that are totally optional. So that's some. If you are interested in that. I'm going to put Sarah's email address in the chat. There we go. We forgot about that. Okay, so on to on to our main idea tonight. So, when we think about community, right it's it's for for for many people. And naming the thing sometimes like you when you hear your experiences reflected back to you. There's something about that that for many people can, you know, is is is really important and can kind of just like shift shift a little bit about of how how we see how we see our own experiences when we have language or, you know, words words to describe it. So when we think about employment. There's a lot of people, a lot of people for whom work does not work for their brain. And tonight we are going to be replaying what I thought was a really memorable interview a really memorable conversation with Annie Crow, who is a human rights attorney and disability advocate. The conversation was about neuro day virgin burnout and employment. While David's going to play a video with some with some introduction to the topic and introduction of Annie and while the video is playing which will run about 50 minutes, maybe 45 minutes. If you want to keep the chat box going as a completely optional way of participating, you might you, you, you. It's really the chat runs in parallel to the, to the what's happening on the screen here at Brent Club. All right, David, take it away. Andy Crow is a neuro divergent 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. So 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, yep, neuro divergent burnout is a condition commonly experienced by autistic ADHD years of all ages, characterized by one mental and physical exhaustion. There's a 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. You know, it's a very, 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 burnout. There's a lot 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. And the consequences of unmet access needs in healthcare and education and employment in social interactions. It's all what happens when you try to fit the square peg into a round hole. 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 a wheelchair 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 ramp. And so it is with invisible disability. 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 whatever the first week of June was June 1 or or June 2 or whatever that was, June 6 about neurodivergent health challenges where we covered some of this of the multi-organ system neuroimmune conditions, aka all the things. You know, you 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 really. I have no 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 me and Annie was so patient with me of like, you know, just not being able to keep up with responders 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. 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 on 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. The circular relationship rate of burnout and employment. So I wonder for you, and based on that, you know, 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. 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. Yeah, so basically burnout. 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. And the reason for that here in Australia at least is that they tend to be the people who get referred to one of my language. I'm not speaking probably they tend to be the people that autistic people get sent to for help. 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. 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 healthcare you'd expect, right, 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, 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. But also 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, 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 it's at work or in health care 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 peace on social media and autism and ADHD. And he used me as the segue from the, I think it was a psychiatrist or a researcher saying that there was so much misinformation on tick tock 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 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 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. 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 going into work and 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 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 and so 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. And he's podcast as well as the website for neuro access. Oh yeah. 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 your battery. And it's almost like so it's 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 butting heads with this system that remains inaccessible like you could have the most amazing employer the most neuro affirming 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 own 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 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. Well 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 to add to 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. 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 master class in eating disorders and supporting autistic people and she sent me some screenshots of a newsletter that she got from her child's kindergarten, which is like preschool daycare whatever. And they basically wrote this big piece on this is 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 autistic 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 are, 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 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 of 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 real 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 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. When 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 focus 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, which 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 trolling 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, go for it. No, so well I mean the thing is that. Was that me. Yeah, 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, so our understanding and you know if you look at things like high functioning autism and aspergers and stuff. And 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 what leads to more problems are harmful. Most of us have you know like I mean just just the fluctuating capacity. It's a dynamic disability for a reason and I don't even like support so a lot of people say oh don't say hi low functioning just say, hi low studies and I'm like that's also kind of quite limiting, because our support needs fluctuate depending on our environment and 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 long period of time like. This is a motor disability. Um, so one thing I wanted to what I want to first of all just want to answer a question that Chad 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 question. So to a twice exceptionality or also multiple multiple 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. Yeah, 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. 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. Yeah. 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. 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 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. It's a 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. And like, why we talk about inclusion here is that, you know, not only are at least one in five people neuro divergent, 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. It is so much better than waiting for people to have to fight. And what do you think about that comment. 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 down 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. And 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 striving 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 box ticking 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 that's one not very empowering and to does raise all these barriers of, you know, preconceived stigmas stereotypes, all the challenges that we constantly have to do deal with, when we're barely struck 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 don't do 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. 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 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 when you pull back on everything, you're there's this, you know, sort of element of guilt, I guess, and shame around feeling like 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 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. 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 that 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. 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 dopamine. We need it. We need it, not just for like you know motivation engagement attention we need for like motor functioning coordination and starting and 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 a reception processing 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. Unless likely to be able to, you know that's another barrier to accessing sufficient protein to make enough dopamine anyway because the barrier is circular. Yeah, and the ADHD tax and 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 know 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. We're waiting for questions. Feel free to add anyone if anyone wants to talk. Go ahead but that's such a good point now 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 pain in 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'll do it from an affirming way where 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. All right, I took over screen share so that we could stop video early. Okay, Sophia and may I really appreciate your patience that was a prerecorded interview so I'm sorry I wasn't able to call on you sooner. Sophia can go first and then may after. I have a question. I'm a little bit of a story. So I have ADHD dyslexia and a visual impairment that I don't fully understand because I think there's more to it. Because I don't completely add up with all the things about my visual impairment and there seems to be more things that could be caused by other things. But the point is, I've been homeschooled my whole life until I started attending public school because of family life situations. And I had to be pulled out of public school because no one could provide me with a sufficient accommodations like they were working on it since April of last year, and I just quit Friday was my first day of being a homeschooler again. And like, why, like, why is it so difficult to like, even communicate with the school sometimes like my mom had to be like a nanny for the school to get them to do anything why is the school system like just set up to be like, Okay, you have accommodation needs. Let's just like 123 for these basic standard accommodations for a screen reader. I'm with you, Sophia. And like a different even like not even like a different workload just more times on tests, like because I have ADHD. There's a llama on the wall. What do you think I'm gonna be looking at my test of my visual impairment that makes it painful for me to look at things close up, or the wrong on the wall the long on the wall. Totally. I was like, I was like an argument to like get the schools to like do their legal duty because like they're giving me accommodations air quotes, but they're not actually like penetrating my everyday they weren't penetrating my everyday school life. Yes. So thank you for naming that Sophia I think you know there there's not there's there's there's not a valid answer to your question. It's there, there are, you know, I think systemic ableism in impacts everything in so many different broken systems. And I think that there is insufficient education of professionals, and that's not the biggest reason in my point of view. My point of view is that systems interfere with individuals, even recognizing what's happening right so I could be a professional that really like knows how to do the right thing and wants to do the right thing and is all about doing the right thing. But the system is forwarding the professionals, these systems, you know whether it's in education whether it's in health care. It really everyone loses students patients professionals that just it is Sophia I do need to I want to give other people a turn. Yes, an employment. Yes, Sarah. May. I had a clarifying question about a statistic that you named in the recording. You said that one in five people are neurodivergent and I've heard the statistic that one in four people are disabled. Do you know if the statistic about neurodivergent people like neurodivergent people are being counted in the other statistic or if they're two separate ones. Great question and I am in all of you for holding on to that question for as long as I made you hold on to it. So, thank you for that. I think that statistics like this. They're talking points, but they're none of them are accurate. We are completely under counting a lot of people in a lot of different markets. We're asking right exactly right so so we have a lot of neurodivergent people a member neurodivergent is a big umbrella term we're not just talking about autistic and ADHD people we're talking about, you know, folks with traumatic brain injury we're talking about folks with bipolar disorder OCD Tourette's you know we're talking about like a whole bunch of people that is probably not all being counted in that at least one in five number. I would also suppose that that one in four number is also an under report. I think that when we think about invisible disability there are lots of people with invisible disability who don't know they have invisible disability so it's so anyway I would say that probably both of those numbers are probably wrong. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. We have time for a couple of other questions or comments if anyone else would like to share who has another term. The comment in the chat about the term bore out. Yeah, I'd never heard that term before any Sophia there's several comments in the chat in response to your question with folks chiming in about systems bureaucracies and and Hilton also making the connection between you know the overlap of you know the way that the way that a lot of educational systems are set up you know in connection to you know capitalism and and you know processing of of of the masses. I didn't say it that way Hilton I added to your added to your comment. Crystal, and then Sophia. This is one thing that I noticed in trying to find a school like I put in the chat that I just put my daughter out this last week and change to homeschool but in trying to find one. I tried several different private schools where particularly in each of them the director told in the interviews that yes I have a neurodivergent child. I have an autistic child and will absolutely we know how to deal with this it's great. And to me I thought that meant that they would support her. And so what I came to find out is what that meant was they understood how difficult it was to get them to conform, and that they would just keep pushing in that direction. And so that was just something that I found surprising. And I went in and I misunderstood there, what they were saying to me basically because. Yeah, that was the result. There's a double it's it's it's you know there's jargon there's the double empathy problem with with with you know it's it's it's so so like it's so complete like anyway, um, all of it. Sophia. The first question you were talking about how like it's this kind of the system to, but the system is legally required to help us. Like so. Why can't they just like respond to my mom's email and be like, Yeah, sure. And then like go to the person on the hall and be like, Hey, we're legally required to like just like do like five like three 10 maybe for like different kids, standard things. Yeah, yeah, no, you're, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. Like the amount of kids who are neurodivergent and disabled like, and also like, like they're legally required but they don't. Yeah, it's, it's, I have no words. We see this every day. I can only say that you're not alone. I can say that the overwhelming majority of the kids and teens in our community are, are, you know, anyway, it's, it's, it's really really hard. So I think that if, if I have anything potentially useful to say, which I don't, you know, let it be that you're not alone. Mel. Hi. If I might say something about dealing with bureaucracies, which I have to do on a regular basis. It's like I said in my comment in the chat. Part of the problem is motivation that that in complex bureaucracies people get punished for making errors, but they don't get rewarded for getting jobs done. Right. That's like the big thing is don't make any mistakes. So the strategy is how do you turn non performance into a mistake. That's, that's your only thing and sometimes it's just embarrassment, sadly, public embarrassment is your only, your only leverage on them. But, but yeah, it is, it is very difficult in the navigating of bureaucracy that just wants to streamline everything. And I've spoken with teachers in Vermont who say, who are understanding say, we don't do this way, do things this way, because it's the best way. We do things this way because we don't literally don't have the resources to do it any other way. They'd like to, but they don't have the money they don't have the time. So unfortunately it's a higher policy level. Yes, and I think that I'm like, when I was in residency, I had a faculty member who, every time I would flip my lid when some system thwarted someone because that was like on the regular, whether that you know anyway. And I'll never forget he said, don't respond to like irrationality with rationality like this is like you're not there's not going to be like a reason that is ever going to make sense to justify this thing that just happened. But what Hilton is describing is the idea that like complex systems, they don't respond like the way that two individuals would communicate with one another. And so just like recognizing recognizing systemic forces like the, there's a lot of really bad systemic forces in this world. And as many people in the chat are commenting around like the vehicles for addressing complex broken systems, if you're in a legal situation, there's a certain amount of privilege associated with that. It's just not just money but time and, you know, even access to the, the, the, the strategy like the knowledge or even how to like do that like I don't know how to do that right so yes sierra. I, I just wanted to say I think you know one thing that I really took away from this presentation last time we saw and and this time to was what she was talking about is how how important, you know, virtual connections and social media is but really how important that community realm is and I think you know as we're talking about this of, you know, broken systems, and how trying to work in an assistant that's not built for yourself or not built for your really hard. And that, you know, as we as we see here in brain club how, how important, finding that community is whether that's through tick tock or whether that's through brain club or whether that's through an in person group, like, how, how healing and how restorative that that community is. And anyway, I guess I just wanted to point that out that's something I took away last time and I, I felt like that really that really hit home again this time. Thank you, Sierra. And what a perfect way to to wrap up tonight. Thank you all so much for being part of our community thank you so much for being here. And we'll look forward to seeing you next week so next week is we're resuming our monthly book chats. And so next week's book chat will be about the reason I jumped by an I okay, maybe she does. And even if you have not read the book. Most people participate in book chats without reading the book we have excerpts of quotes and discussion points and video clips and I think it'll, it'll be a good one so we'll look forward to seeing you then. Thank you Weaver's pointing out in the chat that you know that to check out audio books from your local public library, if you and and and yeah it's it's, thank you so much, and we'll see you next week. Thanks everybody. Bye.