 When did you find out that you're ADHD and when did you find out that you're autistic and what all did they go in and that kind of thing, it would be really interesting to hear. Yeah. So background, I grew up in that fun slice of Americans who did not vaccinate their children because they thought it would make you autistic. I was vaccinated until I was three years old and then I had a seizure from a high fever after a vaccination and my mom freaked out and stopped vaccinating me and my siblings and no more from then on out. So I actually just finished my adult vaccinations in my 30s, which was great. So anyway, this is to say that what I was raised to believe autism was was completely non-speaking, right? Like, yeah, no eye contact rocking back and forth. Ironically, there are literally video clips of me at two and three exhibiting super stereotypical autistic behaviors, including one of one favorite, one of mine. I'm in a box. I'm like rocking back and forth, like having a good time by myself and my mom starts singing to me slightly out of key and I just start screaming at her to stop. It's just like not, you know, I had perfect pitch. Like it's not subtle, right? I had all these things, but I was born in the 80s, you know, to these parents and they, you know, they just didn't believe that that was possible, basically for me, you know, and I was stigma was to sort of embedded within that mind about what it is and exactly. And I was hyperlexic. And so again, like they didn't know that that was a sign and not a, you know, oh, you couldn't possibly be right. So looking back, I, you know, if I were a kid now, I would have been diagnosed very young because it was really super obvious. A lot of the things I was doing and saying and then both my parents. So my dad is autistic and ADHD and my mom is ADHD. So I grew up in a very, very neurodivergent household where things were being lost or where we got, you know, locked out of our house all the time. Just like where a lot of it and we like, you know, my parents had a lot of trouble doing things functionally. And then I have six younger siblings, all of whom are neurodivergent. Yeah, so six siblings. And most of them are diagnosed or something. Yeah. So it was a very chaotic household for me as an autistic kid. It was very, very overwhelming. And so the reason I'm giving that background is because in my, you know, early 20s when I was done with the college and I was looking at my life and I was like, I cannot buy groceries. I cannot get my laundry done. Like I can't do things in my life when I was trying to figure out what that mapped to besides just depression. I was like, oh, ADHD and I know both my parents have ADHD because they they have talked about their experiences enough. And like my mom at least will say my dad has ADHD. So like they have no problem with that. They're they're not down with the autism. But that's really, really, really interesting. Isn't that kind of the stigma around ADHD is kind of this fun, fun, outgoing, kind of a bit messy minded. Yeah, just kind of weird and fun. And you know, a party animal kind of like you lose your keys all the time. Like that's kind of funny. And like the story of my family tells us that my mom at one point made my dad five sets of keys. And when he lost the fifth one, like after not very long, my mom thought about it and she was like, I think it's in your red coat. And he was like, oh, I lost that coat. So I mean, like he just like could not he went to work. He was a pastor and he went to work one time without shoes or pants on. Like he like got to work and realized he wasn't wearing shoes or pants. He was just wearing like shorts and he was like, well, it's Sunday. And I have to like, I have to, you know, I can't go to church like this. Stay behind the altar, just like crotch behind the altar. Make sure. Oh, yeah. So for me going, oh, I'm ADHD. Like that was not a jump, right? Like that was just like a yes, this isn't my family. You know, this makes sense. I know that people in my family struggle with stuff like this. And it's also just not as stigmatized. So, you know, that just felt and I actually didn't know at the time that part of autism is also executive function issues, right? So that, you know, if I'd known that, if I'd known more about it, autism actually might have looked more prominent in my history in certain ways. But anyway, so I did seek an ADHD diagnosis. It was a very weird experience. I at the time also had an incorrect bipolar diagnosis, which I think is extremely common for ADHD people specifically because we have very sick women as well. We're seeing this like exactly bipolar, BPD, schizophrenia even I've heard like in particular, the really cyclical energy of ADHD of having these like big bursts of energy and then needing big rest and like a lot of rest. Like that looked like bipolar. And so when I went and got the ADHD testing, there were, you know, two issues. One, because I had bipolar, they were like, well, we can't give you stimulants. You can't have stimulants, right? So I've actually never had stimulant medication. I'm thinking about trying it soon. Don't get that that pharmaceutical grade, my fun petamine. I want to try it and just see, like, what does this do to my brain? I think I've heard enough stories about it to know it's not. It's probably not going to do what I hope it's going to do. But I want to have that I'm curious about the experience that I've heard neurotypical people can have of their brain just being quiet. I'm like, what is that? It's it's it's interesting, isn't it? Because it is designed as a way to produce energy. It's, you know, I've had to means are these to make you productive, make you productive and have all this energy. But a lot of the experiences that people who are ADHD have is that it calms their brain because it kind of it's weird, isn't it? Why would you give a high like a very energy inducing, hyperactive medication, someone who is naturally quite hyperactive and like, you know, all over the place in terms of thoughts and behaviors and stuff. It doesn't make any sense, but it's yeah, we don't understand the brain. But, you know, we still don't know how most psych meds work, for example. No, depression, depression, meds like I think the way that they found out that serotonin was important with like depression and mental health disorders is by giving someone something that impact to their serotonin and then being like, hey, that's that must be a reason. And that's that's, you know, something that I think about a lot because from doing my biomedical sciences course, you know, I know that the way that science is supposed to work is you supposed to find a target, find a reason, have a mechanism, do trials around that and then produce things that might be able to counter that. Whereas with antidepressants, it's like the opposite way. It's it's not very understood. No, it's really I mean, that I think of that every time we take a medication that most of the time when I read about it, it says we still don't understand the pathway through which this is just like that's the norm in medication. So, you know, there's a long way to go there. Oh, but back to my ADHD testing story. So when I did the testing and then, you know, come back and they and also it was like a student testing me because I was in Boston and you just like you get medical care by students when you're in a city that has a lot of med schools. So he was like in school to become, you know, whatever. So when he started the, you know, kind of reciting back the results to me, he started with, well, obviously, you have an extraordinary mind. And I was like, he's not going to help me. You know, kind of the problem with adding in the giftedness element is, you know, one of the things he was saying to me is he was like, you probably just, you know, it's probably frustrating for you when you're in the 99th percentile of a bunch of stuff to have things where you're not, you know, to have things where you struggle. And I was like, he was saying his example was like something being in the 50th percentile and I was like, no, no, that's fine, but I'm looking at my actual results and I have things that are in like the 16th percentile. But I maxed out the verbal part of the test. Like I read they ran out of words for me, you know, because I knew all of them like there there shouldn't really be anything in my brain in terms of like focus where I'm in the 16th percentile for something. Right. Yeah. And I mean, shouldn't in like a, you know, metaphysical sense, but like, you know, just according to like how most people are, neurotypicals might be. And that I have this very like uneven focus pattern. And one of the things actually that they pointed out in both because then I did neurosec testing for autism two years ago, one thing they pointed out in both parts of the testing is that I have a much easier time focusing when the task is hard because it's interesting to me. So I did better on the hard tasks and then I did terribly on the easy tasks, which is like a really classic, right? So both autism and ADHD, I love the term interest based nervous system like that. I can't do anything or it's very, very hard to mobilize myself to do anything that is not interesting. And, you know, there are a lot of ways around that, right? I can like listen to, I listen to podcasts a lot, you know, while I'm, say, doing dishes or something, right? If I have to do something that's boring, I can make it more interesting or like try to stimulate myself in some way. But that was another thing. And, you know, the test I relate to that, I relate to that a lot totally. And so I actually just looked back again at the results of my neurosec testing, just kind of side by side, because they were five for six years apart from each other and how. And in one of them, I was heavily caffeinated. And in one of them, I had no caffeine because I was like, I want to see what my brain does without and looking at those numbers. I was just like, I don't see how anyone could look at this and not think I was struggling, like looking at the just the huge variability. And I know from, you know, learning more about it, that one of the things they look for in ADHD is like extreme differences in the bell curve between different areas. So having like really, really strong competency in one area. And again, like I had those, you know, a couple of things that were just spiky profiles, spiky profiles exactly, where, you know, your brain is doing some things very well. And then some things your brain is just like, no, thanks. I have no interest in doing that. And I won't and you can't make me. Yeah, it's some it's really interesting you're talking about that kind of high level of like competency that you have in different areas that because a lot of the ways that the medical system works or even the education system works is that they flag people who are not doing well in terms of academicity or in terms of life. So, you know, there was there's quite a long period of time pretty much throughout the entirety of secondary school or high school where I struggled massively with, you know, burnout and getting off going off school sick due to anxiety and struggling with the social sensory aspects of school. So I was not doing well at all. And, you know, I went through a lot of mental health pathways because of that. But the school never really picked up as an issue because, you know, I was pretty much a straight A student. You know, I did well in the academic side of things. It was just very much like the social emotional aspects of growth through education that I really struggled with, which I think is equally, if not more important than the academic side of things. So it's kind of interesting. And then when you look at them like the medical system, most people get diagnosed when there's a problem like and you kind of need a problem for people to diagnose you to be like, oh, there's an issue. That's the definition is it has to be affecting your life. Pretty, pretty much, pretty much. And it's it's quite contradicting to the idea of how why most people want to go for that, which is to like affirm their identity and to. You know, understand that, hey, this, you know, this is something. And for some people, it's useful. Some people it isn't. But, you know, it's you always need to have some kind of difficulty for like medical, educational professionals to take you seriously. So it's like waiting for it, like waiting for something to happen. And because the focus is on productivity and doing well in school and at work, honestly, they don't really care if the problem is just that you're not happy in your relationships or like, you know, you have to be at a very high bar of misery and depression before it counts, right? Like it's not just like, oh, I'm not thriving. Yeah, it's like you're like coping, isn't that like they want you to be able to like my mom was saying in the podcast, so I was talking about my life. It was like, you know, I was coping with school to a certain degree. I was not feeling good about school. I was not developing myself emotionally and socially as school. I was doing I was doing the work that I needed to do, but in all of the other areas I was coping. And, you know, we were talking about that. And I don't think it's if everything is good enough just just to cope, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's necessary some of the time, right? That was that was certainly a big part of my life. But it's not the ideal. Yeah. And I mean, I I've had this experience. I know a lot of neurodivergent adults who've had this experience where they were in therapy and because they'd gone to therapy in crisis. As soon as they were out of crisis, their therapist was like, oh, you're good. Like, you're fine. I can graduate you. And you're like, what? Like, I don't want to kill myself today, but that's not a very high bar for life, you know, not doing well. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's reflected in mental health systems. Well, they want to get you out of the red zone. But once you're out of the red zone, it's not it's, you know, they're not that bothered, you know? So, like, perhaps in in my my early, early teenage hood, when I had a lot of ideation and a lot of like harming behaviors and things of that nature, then they were they were full on. Like it was like weekly sessions, weekly support. It wasn't helpful, but they still took it seriously. Yeah. Yeah. And that now I'm in kind of an adulthood. I do need that that support in terms of therapy. But I don't have that ideation side of things. And so I don't particularly have the harming side of things either. So those kind of that red zone that people would be in is not something that I'm part of, but I'm not any necessarily doing better, like in areas of my life, it's just my shift and my mindset has changed. Or you can go to Spotify, Apple, Google to check it out on different podcasting streaming services. If you have enjoyed this video this far, please make sure to like, perhaps drop me as a describe if you want to see some more content from me and drop a comment down below, even if it's something simple like an emoji or a heart, it really does help satisfy those big YouTube algorithm gods in the sky. Anyway, I'll let you go back to it. Yeah, I think about this so much because I've been coaching for four years now. And I. I mean, OK, so my like handles on the internet right now are ADHD flourishing. So I was like, OK, you know, flourishing, thriving. This is nice, right? It's not just about that, you know, coping. But I absolutely do not mean that in the sense that like people need to be, you know, producing at some particular level or need their life to look neurotypical. And I was finding that unless I was being really explicit about that and saying, I want I want you to feel good, right? Like I want you to feel good in your life. And that's the point, not your external production. People were coming to me for these like external type problems, right? Like I need or I want my career to look different. I need that. I need a friend. I need a relationship. I need. Yeah, these these sort of external markers of success. And so I think about that so much because for me in my own life, like the external markers of success have never helped me psychologically, at least for more than, you know, a few days or something, right? I might get a little rush of dopamine or something from getting an award. But like it's done. And I was like, I relate to that so much. Yeah, it's yeah. But that's what we think of as flourishing, because that's the those are those external markers of success that we're just highlight real. Yeah. And that's like the reason you should take stimulants, right? Is like, oh, so you can go and do stuff and like be impressive. But we know that that doesn't actually make us happy in the long run. Like it's the day to day, it's the relationships. It's, you know, the way we're talking to ourselves and like self love, which is cheesy, but important. Like my internal self talk is just radically, radically different than it was when I was focused on achievement. Because you talked about sort of like the ADHD side of things. At what point were you like thinking about or questioning? Because I know for a lot of people, there's always this like this part of them that they don't really understand. And the, you know, the diagnosis that like medical professionals give you, they don't fully explain everything. So at what point were you like, hey, there's something more than ADHD and mental health? Yeah, I think actually having an autistic dad who was extremely traumatized and not a nice person made it harder because I was like, oh, I'm a lot like my dad, but I was just like, oh, that's trauma, right? So every everything that I now see in him as an autistic trait, I thought was just like weird trauma stuff or just like being smart and, you know, kind of a weirdo. So it was actually kind of hard for me to see. And I had a really, really great therapist about five years ago who was like, hey, so this diagnosis in your chart is not a thing. This weird amalgamation diagnosis you've gotten over the years, which at that time was rapid cycling bipolar one in full remission. She was like, that's not real. Like that does not exist. Bipolar one does not go into remission. And rapid cycling bipolar does not go into remission. I had no symptoms in seven years. I was still medicated for it, but I had like literally no symptoms. And the reason I'd gotten the rapid cycling diagnosis is because I wasn't having long, I wasn't really actually meeting the diagnostic criteria for bipolar. I was having really bad meltdowns and those meltdowns looked like, you know, I mean, they could be all kinds of things. But basically they were like, well, you're having these like episodes. They were calling them episodes and then, you know, got the diagnosis over time, kind of these things. And so she was like, you know, and she had an autistic kid and she was kind of guiding me a little, you know, I'd say things. And she'd like, oh, my kid does that. So she was kind of like guiding me in this direction to look at maybe considering autism. And as soon as I did with her, like when I was like, look, I was like, oh, yeah, this is me and this is my dad. Like very, you know, very. And I still went through that period. Like a lot of people do in adulthood of, you know, oh, I don't want to take up space in the community or I'm not sure, you know, all the other things. Don't take up resources and voices. Yeah. And so I was, for a while, I was just identifying as neurodivergent generally. I was like, I am very neurodivergent. That's the term I was using. And then actually at the lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, my anxiety plummeted by like 90% even though I was anxious about what was happening in the world, obviously, like my personal, I was like, I don't have to get on the train every day. I don't, you know, I'm not going to work. Like I can, I had the having control over my space. And this is weird, but this is just one specific thing that helped. I also have my own bathroom for the first time in my life. I was in this subsidized apartment through the city with my sibling and we each had like our own half. So we each had our own bathroom. So having control over my space and being able to keep my space clean for the first time in my life, you know, not having other people like messing it up, like being able to do exactly what I wanted with it and realizing the extreme extent of my preferences. Most people don't have preferences that are this strong or that upset them this much. And all of these things kind of happening, you know, at once I was just like, oh, shit, yeah, definitely autistic. Like within, you know, two weeks of lockdown, I was like, this is, yeah, this is definitely this is what's happening. And so, you know, really started identifying with that. And my, you know, my therapist totally agreed and was like, yes, we can, you know, provisionally put this on your chart. The reason I sought an official diagnosis was actually because I work with neurodivergent people. And so I both wanted, I was like, I want the experience of the formal diagnosis to be able to talk about it in case, you know, my clients want to seek it out. I want to be able to talk about it in, you know, from personal experience. And I was like, if I'm gonna have this be part of my public identity and I'm gonna be talking about it, I just feel better if I have the official diagnosis. And I think that's something that, you know, I think within the community, people are very happy and open to people self-diagnosing. But I do also see that, you know, that the utility of having a diagnosis, just especially when you, when you're going out and you're talking about your experiences, like it must be like a lot more, you must be a lot more like safe in yourself, like to do that kind of thing. Yeah, and it's a little bit unfortunate that, I mean, because I completely a hundred percent and behind self-diagnosis and also, you know, I have an autistic brain that's literal and has a weird relationship with authority in certain ways. And it's just like, I didn't want anybody to be able to call me out and I wanted to be like, no, this is real, I have it on paper, you know, all this, so anyway. That was kind of a weird intersection there of my values, I guess, where part of me was like, I shouldn't need it and then part of me was like, but I want it. Yeah, yeah. And I now know that it would prevent me potentially from emigrating to a variety of countries. So I maybe would not have sought the official diagnosis if I'd known that. Really? Yeah, there's a bunch of countries in Europe that you cannot become a citizen of or you can't apply for like moving there if you're autistic. Oh my God. Yeah. Like which countries? I watched a video about this the other day. I don't want to say the wrong ones because I don't remember all of them, but I remember just being like, oh, shit, well, well. And then I also know it can be an issue with custody, which I mean, I don't have kids, but, you know, like it can be brought up against you in custody battles, like all kinds of things, you know, I have my partner and I own a house together and they are on the spectrum, but not diagnosed. So like if, and I mean, I don't imagine this would happen, but like if we were to be in some kind of legal fight over the house, they could potentially use my diagnosis against me again, they wouldn't. And I have not actually worried about that. I just know that I'm like, oh great, now I have all these potential, you know, problems from having the official diagnosis.