 Hi everyone, my name is Bart Farrell and Amanda will be joining us today, but in a different way because Amanda Brock unfortunately got COVID and wasn't able to come to the event. Luckily, Amanda and I had recorded a podcast earlier this year, so I'll be kind of going back and forth as if we're kind of doing flashbacks. But nothing could really be more ADHD than this, right? As Amanda put in the description of the talk, there will be no slides and that is 100% accurate. But before we get started, just want to get a quick feel of the crowd. If you feel comfortable saying this, it's okay and if you don't, it's totally fine. If you have ADHD, raise your hand. Okay, good, we've got some folks. If you have a family member or friend who has ADHD, raise your hand. Cool, all right, cool, cool, cool. It's just nice to know a little bit of background and where everybody's at. There are many roads to take in this sort of process when talking about this topic. But to stay true to what Amanda had put in the description, talking about the power of diagnosis, everyone goes through a different diagnosis process at a different phase in their lives. I'm 37 years old, I guess I should intro a little bit better. My name is Bart Ferrell. I'm originally from the US, but I've been living here in Bilbao actually for the last 12 years. And I got diagnosed with ADHD last year in, I believe, February or March. And it's been a very interesting process since then. I would say there are many processes that are ongoing. And we'll hear a little bit from Amanda about her process because, like I said, no two processes really seem to be the same. Talking about adult diagnosis as opposed to being diagnosed as a child, the different sources of stigma that can go into that. And the fact that ADHD is something that's been seen more and more, all right? I met Amanda previously through Open UK and we connected a lot more once we realized that both of us had ADHD. And Amanda's case, it's different as well because she was also diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. So that's an additional factor that makes her case a little bit different. But what I've realized throughout all of this, and if there was any mistake, I wouldn't call it a mistake, but anything that, in the same way with open source, if you make community part of your solution, things probably get a lot easier. In my case with ADHD, the best thing that I've done by far has been talking to other people with ADHD and getting informed in that way because of realizing other people go through similar things. Sometimes they're still different. There are many different flavors we can save ADHD in terms of how it manifests itself. But specifically to the point today about speaking about diagnosis, I think it's fair we can just jump right in to what, how Amanda was approaching this in the interview. And I would highly recommend focusing on Amanda's side of the screen because if you look at my side of the screen, you'll see that I'm probably looking at 500 different tabs and getting quite distracted. But nevertheless, it wasn't me and I wasn't listening. Let's start out with, to hear directly from Amanda. I might need a little bit of help on the sound to get that optimized, but I think we should be good to go. Oh, it's quite a long story. So I was looking at autism. Sorry, but can we get a little bit more volume? If possible, just to make sure everyone can hear. People kept joking. Let's back it up a little bit. Let's make sure. The whole process started. Oh, it's quite a long story. So I was looking at autism and people kept joking me saying to me how aspy I was. So I thought I would get an autism review done as part of a process within Open UK of some work we wanted to do to support neurodiverse people. And I went into a process of assessing my neurodiversity without having given it any thought. So about two and a half years ago, I had an autism and ASD diagnosis and I was just furious when I got it. Didn't deal with it for a good six months, wouldn't look at it. I hadn't considered that I would have an emotional reaction. But the autism piece was harder to do and I think women we mask really well. So it's quite a difficult process to work out if you are ASD or not. But the ADHD piece, everybody I came into contact with kept saying you must go and get yourself assessed. And I kept saying, no, I'm not going to because I don't want to be medicated. And what can they do for me other than medicate me? So it took me a couple of years to actually be willing to go and get assessed. And that largely happened because an old university friend of mine who is a very smart PhD mother of many children said to me that she'd taken medication and it was life changing. So I thought, OK, if someone I know that well and I really trust their opinion is telling me that then I'm going to go and have a look at this. And I went to the NHS and diagnosis here takes multiple years. So I paid something that I couldn't really afford to have a private diagnosis done. And I've had that for 11 months and I'm going to be 54 in August. So I was just about, I was probably 52 in a bit when I had my diagnosis. Okay, with that in mind a few things. We can stop there real quick. So just to unpack some of the things that Amanda was mentioning. In terms of the diagnosis process, like I said, it's very different in every case. In her case, she was going through an autism spectrum, taking a look at that. And then this sort of just kind of came up. What I want to mention here is once again, my name is Bart Farrell and I'm a freelance content creator. I'm not a mental health professional so I can only speak from my experience. I'm not telling you that this is what has to be done. I can only say what I did. In my case, during the pandemic, did anybody have a difficult time in the pandemic? Yeah, I definitely did. In Spain, it was really rough. We were locked in for like three months and we could only go to the supermarket, to the pharmacy and we had a really strict curfew and you couldn't go outside to do sports. I was having a really, really hard time. And it seems like it's been from other conversations with other folks that the pandemic was something that sort of brought the ADHD to a head. And so at that time I started seeing a psychologist who I had seen when I was in university. And she said, you know what? It may be the case that you may have ADHD based on the things that you're talking about. The difficulty concentrating, mood swings, another thing that's part of ADHD which I would say is one of the hardest things in my particular case is what's called RSD, which is rejection sensitivity dysphoria where it's the immense reaction to being rejected or the feeling that you're being rejected or anticipating that you're going to be rejected. Like I said, this sort of emotional dysregulation was something that definitely came up in my case. Something else that I want to mention that Amanda touched on because this is in a series of conversations that I've done called ADHD, ADHD which I started after doing a panel in KubeCon in Detroit with some wonderful folks and realized, you know what? I think there are other conversations that can be had here and if it makes a difference for one person and even that one person's me, well I'm sure I'm very happy to do this. Amanda mentioned something about getting assessments. They're different in every country. I'm not going to survey about how many different countries are represented here but it's vastly different in Spain than how it's dealt with elsewhere. I'm originally from the US when I was thinking about getting assessed. I looked at options as well in the United States but then it was like, if I'm going to get treatment in Spain, how's that going to work out? Different factors that go into that. In this particular case, Amanda got private consultation. Prior to getting diagnosed, I did several online tests. I want to make a huge disclaimer here. There was a report from the BBC about how there were like sort of not legitimate diagnosis that were going on through practitioners that weren't really asking the right questions. ADHD is not something that can be diagnosed in 30 minutes. It takes lengthy conversations. I had a full assessment with a psychologist as well as a psychiatrist. I had to do a really boring, horrible logic test with shapes and things like that that I absolutely hated. I'm going to say it. In my case, I felt like it was quite a thorough process. Just keep that in mind. Just because you go to one place and it says, hey, take our free assessment. The online assessments that I did, all of them came, showed that I had ADHD and there was one that was so long I was like, I'm not even going to bother doing this because of further indication. So yeah, I mean, full disclaimer, I can't put together IKEA furniture, right? Reading instructions is not really my thing. But like I said, it really is different everywhere you are in the world, so it's best to get informed. If that's something or someone you care about is interested in, it's best to get informed regarding local laws, local medical care and things of that nature. One of the things that Amanda mentions as well that she'll mention again in a further answer is the difference in diagnosis because of being a woman. There's a huge amount of stigma around this and there's an additional amount of masking, which is a topic that you'll see a lot of neurodiverse folks talking about that in terms of social situations you have to control impulses, you can't say just what you think and you have to anticipate how people might take a reaction, things of that nature, but in addition being a woman adds a whole another level of complexity in many cases. Traditionally speaking, ADHD is considered to be something that affects young boys who are gendery, who can't sit still, associations with not doing well in school. You find some cases like that, you find other, for me, school is relatively easy. I didn't have major problems. I did have other things though, unpacking, looking at emotional dysregulation, this rejection sensitivity dysphoria, different things that were very much a part of my life as a child, as an adolescent and a young adult. But like I said, different cases can be different. Another thing that Amanda talked about later in this conversation and I do highly recommend checking it out. I'm happy to post a link on Twitter afterwards because we don't have enough time to get it, to dig into everything today. But the aspect of medication, is anybody here from the United States? Just out of curiosity? Yeah. Big problems right now getting access to meds in the United States. Big, big problems, right? ADHD meds have been put in a category of being at risk. There's new legislation to control things, not only on opioids but also on stimulants and ADHD medications have been affected by that. So there's a shortage going on. In the UK they've also been suffering from a similar problem and Amanda talked about that more in the interview. And Amanda actually mentioned in the podcast that she had been for several months without having access to medication. The point that I'm making here is that in any diagnosis process, medication can be part of the conversation but it doesn't have to be the only part of the conversation. There are other forms of complementary treatments that can be beneficial, such as cognitive behavioral therapy. There can be other things as well too of establishing routines. There are lots of different elements out there. So don't feel like going into an ADHD diagnosis process means you're going to be, you're just going to be medicated because that was a sort of prejudice I would say or bias or assumption I had going into it. And then realize this is part of a bigger conversation, right? I just want to say this because I suffered a lot feeling isolated when I was going through the diagnosis process, feeling the stigma, embarrassed, not wanting to talk about it, which is something we'll see a little bit later. But just remember that it's a process and I can't recommend enough the fact of take advantage of communities of folks with ADHD. It's interesting that Amanda's in the UK because one of the best resources that I found is called the Adult ADHD UK Podcast. And it's basically two neuroscientists insulting each other for 30 minutes, right? And so they're very, very funny and it's a kind of humor that I like. It doesn't mean that it's for everybody. But like I said, go out there and find the resources that are going to work for you, but really listening to people firsthand from what their experiences have been like has been the most helpful aspect. So now let's keep it moving. Let's get back to Amanda. I'm sure we're just interrupting each other the whole time here. That's another very strong ADHD characteristic. Looks like Amanda's about to talk. I just got there as well. We can talk more about that as well. Yeah, but I guess taking a few steps back is that you mentioned having a friend and not making a big difference. I think a lot of people's cases that influences it. But what were some of the things that made you feel like, okay, based on what I understand ADHD to be once you started looking into it, what are the things that you identified with, particularly as an adult, because the stereotype of ADHD, oh, it's jittery children that can't stop fidgeting and things like that. But in the case of adults, what were things that you noticed, like maybe there is something here? Absolutely nothing. And I had no sense whatsoever that I was ADHD. And it was only when medical professionals kept telling me that I should go and have a diagnosis done that I was very clearly ADHD, that I... I thought it was a bit rude of them to start with, to be quite honest, I wasn't exactly pleased about it. And I had no idea of how ADHD really manifests. So in my head, it's those naughty children running around screaming in the classroom at school, underachievers. And it hadn't occurred to me what it really was. And as I started to think about it, I started to talk to friends. I found more and more people I knew identified as being ADHD, mostly undiagnosed, because it's a very expensive process and it's very difficult to get it in the public health care at the NHS. What I have since realized is the behaviors that I have. People won't expect this of someone like me, which I think is why it's good to talk about it, but it is more than possible that there is a single task that I have to achieve in a day that could be worth money to me or my organization that's critical or necessary for my reputation or really just important in life. And I will completely forget I have to do that. It's just outrageously bad. I come across as being a bit dippy by not doing things or being disorganized. Yet I do so much and I achieve so much. I'm super organized, but there are certain things I can't do. I'm really bad at paying parking tickets. Things like that kind of admin. Sometimes I carry it to multiple countries over multiple weeks and months before I can actually make myself do it. And then when I do that kind of admin, it takes me half an hour to do five things. And I've probably incurred fines of several hundred pounds because I've not just been able to, you know, another friend calls at the ADHD tax. So I'm really bad at those kind of things. I can't force myself to do things if I've got it into my head that that's not, you know, high in my priorities or it's dull. It's, you know, not a now thing. It's not what I'm currently interested in. I'm really bad at applying myself. I find it much easier to work in a sort of free environment like that when I have an open UK than to be in a prescriptive environment. I was a lawyer for 25 years. I've had a couple of bosses punish me by making me desk based, knowing that I can't do that. I can't sit in one place for a whole day. I've enjoyed working internationally because that involves moving around, you know, and it's not, if you move your road anywhere, I just cannot sit in the same place day after day. On the other hand, I have like this super focus that when I'm on it, I'm on it and I forget about everything else. I interrupt people, which I've been really, really pushed over the years about at work. And as a young female lawyer in a very sexist environment and time, you know, 20 or 30 years ago, I was really punished for doing that to older men. I honestly, I'm listening, but I cannot show people I'm listening. I can repeat back what you've just said, but I cannot demonstrate to people in a way that makes them comfortable that I'm listening to them. Okay, good. So a couple other things to take note of, right? So one of the things that she mentioned is, you know, having the difficulty, and this is something that I saw a tweet about recently saying, no, no, ADHD people are, it's not a deficit of attention. It's paying attention to everything at the same time. All right, and sometimes the feeling of, perfect example. So this week that I have this week, I did a full day event yesterday with the Soda Foundation. I'm giving two talks today. After this talk, I'm going down, getting my suitcase, going to the airport, because I'm emceeing another event tomorrow in Holland, and then I come back on Thursday to the CNCF meetup that you were all invited to, all right? So this is very typical overboarding, and there's a great video that came out recently from Casey Nastat, who's an American video maker, and he talks about ADHD as being this creative poison, that you go into modes of either very low stimulation and stagnation and feeling bored, which then piles up with procrastination, and then leads to extreme amount, because it's normal to have a certain amount of stress as a source of stimulation, but when it gets too much, then it starts breaking into anxiety, a lot of more mistakes are going to happen. So these last two weeks building up to this one have been quite difficult, but as I stand here today, I'm doing quite well. Is that her coming across as being really dippy? My entire life I've been told about how good I am at academics, how well I can do things, how I can put things together, that I'm energetic and passionate, but the very little things, like what Amanda said about paying a parking ticket that I'm not capable of doing, are so crushingly embarrassing, like, for example, or just disaster scenarios. My phone right now is on its last, last, last legs. It says that there's moisture in the charger, and that's not true because I've dried it out with a blow dryer and I've cleaned it out, and it still keeps saying that, and rather than just going and buying a new phone, I keep walking around with this piece of shit in my pocket that's causing me all these problems, and it's really important for work, particularly at a conference time. At this event I'm going to tomorrow in the Netherlands, they ask, can you take a picture with all the speakers? The problem is this thing taking selfies is pretty much out of storage. It's really interesting that I organized but these things are kind of crippling where you have to say like, well, you know what, maybe I won't be able to take a picture because my phone might die and the camera doesn't work. So like I said, these just really basic things that just pile up and something that a neuro-typical person would be like, oh, phone doesn't work, go get a new one, solve the problem. In my mind it's like, no, life will be much more exciting if there's impending doom and chaos from all sides. So like I said, I very much identify with what Amanda says there about some of these just basic admin tasks. In my case I have the blessed fortune to work with someone who's very organized and knows about this. My point here, just in the same way that, as Amanda mentioned, getting that treatment, that diagnosis in every country is going to be different. One thing and being open about having ADHD is different in every country, how it's going to be received. So if you have ADHD or if you're getting diagnosed, you get to decide who you want to talk about it with and who you don't want to talk about it with. Some people will say stupid stuff. There will be things, there will be reactions where, oh, so you're crazy, oh, does that mean you're schizophrenic? Or a whole litany of other things that based on people's misunderstandings, lack of contact, or they haven't talked to people, it's not their fault, all right? But these things can be very damaging. And so like I said, you have to decide about how you're going to approach it. But what I do think is important and what I try to do is that I try to explain, look, I can tell you that I have ADHD and it might mean this or that. Instead, what I try to say is I may need reminders. I will also try to be very upfront about the things that I'm not good at doing. Yet sometimes, of course, I still have to do admin tasks. I try to delegate as many as possible or I also try to inform people to control expectations about if you ask me, putting things in a spreadsheet, I would rather pull my toenails off, all right? That's not something I'm going to be good at. And I've organized database conferences, all right? But it's just not something I'm good at, nor I think I'm ever going to be good at. So like I said, it's just really important about being honest and being transparent and not being super hard on yourself. If I could give any piece of advice, don't do that because I've done that way too much. And it's something that takes time, all right? For me, it's really easy to be kind and generous to other people, but to apply that same kindness and generosity to myself is something that has taken me a lot of time, all right? And if there's anything that's come up as a common thread in the conversations that I've had with people with ADHD is that you have to build, no matter what medication you're taking, no matter what therapist you're talking to, build self-kindness in whatever way you can into your daily life. And also if you don't have ADHD, it's just a good thing to do. Life is short. Why make it harder? So like I said, there are different things to keep in there. Another thing that Amanda mentioned too about the transparency in the work environment, right? I'm a freelancer and Amanda is too. Both of us like to be in environments where we can do different things in a regular company. You wouldn't find just in one job. I like recording videos. I also like organizing events, but I wouldn't want to only organize events or only record videos or do things in English and also do things in Spanish. So I really enjoy being a freelancer because it allows me to work on those different aspects, all right? Which is why I've been offered jobs before and for different reasons I'll say I don't think I'm the right person for this because I thrive in environments where I don't want to get into it. Some folks with ADHD will talk about is the ability to jump from one subject to the next. Whereas for a neurotypical person they might be like, wait a minute, wait a minute I need more context. When you get a bunch of ADHD people together you start like frogs on lily pads of we're talking about pens and then we talk the pen is mightier than the sword. If you had to get a sword, what kind would it be? Do you like Japanese samurai movies? No, I prefer the sword from Braveheart. That's not their fault and that's okay too. So just anticipating those things and providing proper context but I really echo what Amanda says of having been punished in work environments and being put in a desk based situation because of someone that's not going to do very well with that. And also as well too, talking about being in a very, very sexist world where being defiant and things like that or interrupting people in her particular case being pushed a lot to correct those behaviors wanting to correct them and sometimes just not having the mechanisms to do so. Good. So we can skip my part and move on to Amanda's next point. There we go. In different areas but admin tasks we're not researched a bit more like what are some things that you want to focus on there? So I do challenge authority and I don't know if defines the right word but this has always been something that's been quite difficult for me for years. I don't know if it's an appropriate thing to say but it's the truth. Many women have taken me aside and told me how to play men the way women do and that I should be doing that rather than being so direct and I, you know I'm direct to Dutch bluntness and I love living in the Netherlands because of it, because it was easy and in Scotland it was much easier than it has been in England because we're a more direct culture direct to start with and I don't ever mean to be rude but particularly in writing so email hasn't necessarily been good for me as that's evolved and messaging because I'll just say the words that I need to if I have time I've learned to write a nice city around it but that's time and when I run out of time and when I'm under pressure you just get the very blunt X, Y, Z and you know I guess we're all quite rule based and that's something that I suppose has come through as well in the directness over time so it's not been easy but I didn't know why it wasn't easy through a career in big corporates in something like legal probably entirely the wrong thing for me to have done but nobody really understood those kind of personality types and traits and I think in many ways it stopped me flourishing much earlier than I could have in my ideas good so one thing that she mentioned here as well about flourishing earlier the sense of regret for a lot of folks when they get diagnosed with ADHD like I said the diagnosis is not the end it's the start there's so many different processes happening on different levels one of the things that I realize and have gone through is the sort of mourning process of realizing oh I was going through all these things perhaps unnecessarily for a long time and there are a lot of things as well too like I said ADHD there is the part about attention but there's also a big part about being impulsive and there's a really strong emotional component that in my case I would say have been as strong if not stronger or the parts that I I don't really care so much about not paying attention but having this emotional roller coaster and being impulsive and struggling with a lot of things and it's actually interesting to look at the case of in Spain how ADHD first started getting studied was in the 1970s in a drug rehab clinic where they realized wait a minute it's not just a substance use disorder the problem here is controlling impulses and a dopamine deficit that's another category that comes up a lot in ADHD conversations is that when someone accomplishes something in a neurotypical brain there's a sense of satisfaction and relief for folks with ADHD that don't get that it means risky behaviors it means once again substance use and substance abuse that can also be channeled into entrepreneurial activities there seems to be somewhat of a correlation with folks that are entrepreneurs and that also have ADHD because they have very high energy levels they're very passionate they are interested in starting things in maintaining them that's another conversation so I really like starting things I'm not going to lie, maintaining them but like I said you just have to anticipate that and so I know it's like something I've learned from working in software companies is what's the definition of done because the definition of starting is oh this is sexy, this is fun, fireworks all this stuff and then it's like done it's dry, it's boring, it's paperwork but it also means build teams that compensate for those different skills that's another thing that I've learned through this process but like I said with Amanda getting her diagnosis at over age 50 and in my case as well getting diagnosed at the age of 36 there's a big unpacking process of who am I, identity issues where does one thing start, where does another finish these are all normal questions to ask and there doesn't have to be a really clear answer I go back to what I said previously you've got to build in those elements of self kindness to make those conversations easier for you so they don't become so overwhelming no matter what path you take whether it's with medication, whether it's without many different ways to do this because I also want to say this if people think that medication is just oh, guaranteed 180 degree change no, alright, don't think that don't hurt yourself with that misinformation that's not the case in my case, I was originally really scared about this idea about being medicated because I was like I don't want to do that, that's going to make me a zombie or I'm not interested in doing that heard lots of bad things the pharmaceutical industry, they're trustworthy but like I said, it was something that was like well, I think I need to be willing to try this you, before taking any medication whether it's for ADHD or anything else read about it, read case studies read the side effects, see what other people have gone through so you know what to anticipate you have to give it a chance I first started out on one, I can say the name in Spanish, I don't remember the name in English but it was sort of like the generic sort of cheaper option and it was okay for a while but then it built up to the point where I felt like more energetic than necessary it didn't help that I'm a heavy coffee drinker and those things don't go well together so I was like I have to give up coffee to take this can I do both at the same time? Anyway, brilliant so realize that it might be time to try something else so like I said, don't expect to get everything right on the first try be kind to yourself because this is a process and it's going to take time so there's no need to punish yourself there's no need to be extra hard on yourself or something that already brings along its own challenges okay, good we can keep going we need to skip to 11 minutes how do you? yeah, I've thought a lot about this I'm really good at building relationships and I always have been and I suspect my father who has passed away so I haven't been able to talk to about this I suspect he was the same and I actually think I spent a lot of time with him as a very little girl and I think he taught me behavior that was a survival mechanism you know how to manage and navigate people long before most people have to learn those skills because for somebody who is neurodiverse to manage and to fit they have to have those and I think he taught me very well and actually it's ended up being a superpower because I am so good at managing lots of different stakeholders because I've had to do that to survive in a room from probably not much longer and much later rather than I learned to talk you know 3-4 years old I was probably having to navigate and manage the people around me so that I could fit right so in developing those skills and now having the diagnosis is there because in my case through this process if you're like oh you know am I unveiling a new person it's been interesting too is that I've got two common reactions when launching the podcast is that a lot of people are reaching out saying oh my son or my brother or I have ADHD and so when I have a conversation there and then a lot of other friends saying are you okay like as if you know there's going to be this drastic change like no I'm the same person you've always known just now I have a diagnosis and I have a better way of understanding myself but in your case in terms of where you're at right now how's that go nobody's asked if I'm okay I'm feeling neglected but I have spent quite a lot of time talking to friends about it and I struggled with identifying sorry I mean more back here I struggled with identifying as someone who had masked so much for such a long time where I as an individual start an end and where the masking fits around that and that's been quite a difficult thing for me to work out and there's been a couple of changes one I think I am probably more direct than I was because I've stopped dressing enough as much I don't feel the need to pretend but also and this is something that my friends and colleagues make fun of me about I don't understand certain kinds of humour it just I've always when people have done it all my life and I've stopped doing that that's not funny it's not usually everybody laughs when I say that's not funny I don't understand why that's funny but I've spent tens of years decades pretending that I understand what's going on and actually sometimes people say things that I can't tell if they're being mean or funny and one friend said to me why would I ever say something that mean to you I really care about you I love you and I was like yeah I can't help it it's just and I feel that flicker of pain when those things are said to me and I suspect lots and lots of neurodiverse people are the same we just don't understand it you know it's in good so if Amanda ever laughs in front of you she may not actually think it's funny no I don't think it's what she's going for here I think once again Amanda and I both have the ADHD diagnosis but there are so many things that are different because of so many different reasons as you've seen because of gender, because of where we grew up because of the time of our lives in which this happened how all these things came about I really think though and I can't stress enough if you know anybody who has ADHD or if you do yourself it's really important to just not jump to the because I can't say anything about neuro somebody else's brain I can only talk about mine but I can say that sometimes it's velocity in the sense of the first thing that I think about is automatically jumping to a conclusion and a lot of is unpacking really the idea of what is a thought a thought is not a fact a thought is just a thought and a thought can be random it can be triggered by a lot of different things but whether it's the emotional reactions whether it's jumping to a conclusion and particularly being hard on yourself of assuming well I must have done something wrong so I'm bad and I'm terrible and I'm horrible and all these other things are really difficult thing that I've been working on for some time now and I think it can happen with other ADHD folks as well too because of being impulsive and and so like I said those very very quick sorts of reactions but it really is different in every single case that being said we've got a few minutes left I want to open this up are there any questions are there any comments yes that's a really good question and I would say yes and I would say that there were signs because of particularly the emotional regulations of my reactions to certain things that were just disproportionate of going from 0 to not even 100 but 300 you could ask my parents you could ask my siblings you could ask my partner and say like this happened and you did this and then there are other situations where something actually bad could happen and my reaction is actually like really stable which is interesting too because they they talk about you know like jobs that people with ADHD like is where there can be high levels like thriving in chaos so like emergency medical technicians soldiers police officers stuff like that or in my case we're going to do an event yesterday two talks today going to Amsterdam and coming back on Thursday for a meetup so and I don't know what else I probably have forgotten to mention there so yeah but I think that I think that to your point that noticing those signs earlier on and and sort of trying to identify them yeah can also a neurotypical person overreact to something so you can't just take from one isolated incident that like oh this is what's going to how it's going to be but that's how I would that's how I would see it and like I said everybody's case really is so different so that and that's why I've noticed with the podcast is like talking to people that will have really bad meltdowns and have to be isolated for days when something goes wrong and but they have to be open about this at work to saying like hey if this happens to me like I'm not going to be able to do stuff for a few days and and to be even to say that even out loud takes a lot because you're like I don't we don't want special treatment we just want this to be very clear that like I may do this and just so you understand it's nothing personal this is how I've been in other cases does that answer your question okay cool yes definitely and and I think if I've maybe said a little bit earlier is that my entire life I've done well at school I've done like pretty well in most things but I've always felt like a total failure like or that but also the comparison of looking at somebody else and thinking oh there's so much better particularly and I struggle with this a lot which a lot I think I think there's a lot of imposter syndrome that goes on in many industries but I think in perhaps in cloud native in general I can say just being on that sort of side salaries are good jobs pay well there are good conditions so the feeling of I don't deserve this there's no way that I can be that person and in particular in my case coming into this world I'm not a technical person I've never written a line of code in my life but this is what I do for a living in terms of being in this ecosystem and so that was really hard and so imposter syndrome is definitely something that I struggle with but I would say more in this case because of being an outsider than another one where I maybe felt more comfortable but being very hard on myself absolutely and so that even if something goes well it's more like it's a relief that oh thank god it's over it's not that like you actually is the people pleaser factor right I would say I suffer from this a lot more than Amanda does because Amanda can be like this and just walk away good job Amanda but for me it's ending up creating these huge elements of extraction where I'm willing to give absolutely everything because of that imposter syndrome of feeling well I know I'm not that good so I need to give all of this away for free otherwise they're not going to like me or they're not going to accept me and so doing lots of favors and not taking care of myself realizing it while it's going on so it's like how can I stop that before it starts so before I say yes to you know a project or a customer things like that how am I making sure that I'm taking care of myself by providing good boundaries because I've lived through enough horror stories that I should know and learn from that it's the question is really learning from it knowing when to step on the brakes and just being conscious of that so yeah it's definitely something that's affected me yes that's a great question and the thing is if your friends love you they're not going to judge you they're not going to care and it took me too long to realize that and so now it's not that I run to every single friend and say oh I'm feeling so embarrassed or things like that but like my friends that know me they know really well that like this is how I am this is how I operate I also what's interesting too is that from a hereditary perspective my dad is exactly the same like exactly the same and he's now he's now said he was like oh well if you have it I definitely do too what do I need to do and then we also realize that I mentioned as well too this is that my grandfather was exactly the same he got in the past in the US they used to do like a psychological analysis for human resources processes and he got weeded out of certain jobs because they were like this guy is defiant we can't put him at a desk he's very creative and is very passionate about what he does if he's left alone but yeah but going back to your thing is that with my partner and also with good friends I can just be really straight up and saying I know this is probably just me but I just need to get this out there to get that sort of confirmation just getting it out sometimes even just writing it down to get a little bit of distance for me has been helpful what I can say is not helpful is if I'm just chasing my tail in my head because I know exactly where that's going so if you you know you can have like a sort of code word of saying like I'm having a Bart moment and then it's like okay so now they know it's contextualized and so if you can create a sort of code around that with someone that you trust or even you know like I have different like chats with myself um that sounds crazy the Joker 2 is coming out next year folks in Joaquin Phoenix it's not playing um no but like for real like just getting that little bit of external distance can help um but I think a lot of it is just telling people like hey sometimes I just need to get something out there and I'm not asking for a solution that's another thing it's like I'm not burdening you with the task of like having to like resolve this for me but just being there it's just being a good friend and no and they know that you do the same for them you know what I mean um so I hope that answers your question yes very good question depends on the company you know I mean that's that's my dodge not bullet answer yeah that's a really good point is is knowing really clearly what's your job description what's expected of you who you're going to be working with I did one of the interviews I did was Jackie Grindrod and shout out to her she's amazing and she works at she works at AWS and they have an accommodations process where like they actually like you like a coach or like a buddy system sort of thing inside the company but every company is different you know what I mean so like I think more and more companies particularly in this area people say oh there are a lot of neurodiverse people in in you know open source or Claudia that could be the case I think it's also just more open and I'm if it weren't for the fact I actually have to mention this I started exploring the possibility of being an adult with ADHD because of listening to a podcast where someone named Redbeard who's an absolute legend that I've never met in person was interviewed and talked about his process of getting diagnosed so in terms of bringing it up in a company because like I said and I would I strongly stated I'm not asking for a red carpet or that I have an unlimited blank check for excuses and things like that but saying that if X happens I have a tendency to do Y and particularly around so okay strengths finding what are the things that you do well and how can we have you focus on those there will be times where you have to do things that you maybe not like so much how do you build a reward system into that you know it's sort of like the carrot and the stick kind of thing and that's another thing also with ADHD brains is like for every 30 40 minutes of work then you can go look at social media or do whatever stuff you want to do because if not I'm not going to show you my laptop right now but I've got 500 tabs right open and yeah day in day right so yeah and then I delete applications for my phone and then I just spend all my time on the web app yeah yeah turns out you can still look at LinkedIn Twitter and Instagram but yeah on the on the topic of the employer and coworkers it really should be like a talent management HR kind of thing and that you can say like hey how does your company approach the subject of working with folks that are neurodiverse and and see if there if there are any is there any blog posts are there any tweets are there any things that they've done about that are there other folks that work there oftentimes you know ones that are very visible that are in DevRel seems like a fair amount of folks in DevRel also are on the HD side of things are neurodiverse but once again it's a huge group of people so you can't say it's all one thing or the other so if you find some of those sort of champions that you know that are out there actively say hey before I start working I'd like to talk to so and so because I want to know about their experience it shows your interest in getting to know the company better you get to know the company better and they get to know you better too so yeah there's not it's not one size fits all I mean I'll one of the folks we did the panel with and in Detroit he was working in Saudi Arabia and so talking about being neurodiverse in Saudi Arabia at a company there and talking about medication and psychiatrists very complex thing to navigate and and like I said in my case it wasn't it wasn't the same at all but I really think is don't suffer in silence find a way to make it work for you and and really also just like everything else there are communities of folks with ADHD that are happy to share their their experiences and and I just highly recommend it and I realize that from doing the podcast and in typical ADHD fashion recording like 13 episodes all at once and then now it's like I want to keep going with it one minute of the next one but but yeah there are really nice people that are out there who are happy to talk about it so I think really take advantage of that yes I think we're over time actually but yes yeah is a diagnosis worth it depending on what you do with it in my case definitely in my case definitely because it is allowed for a lot of healing and forgiveness and calm and then and then like I said it added other factors but like I expected results too quickly from the medication thing that was a mistake and realizing that it's not going to be ah ha ha everything's perfect like that's not it so like and and whether it's a diet or exercise or anything in life nothing is ever just magically there's no silver bowl there's no this there's no that well it's the same thing so yeah I would say the diagnosis was worth it much more than just hey here's a piece of paper that says you have ADHD that's what I would say it's much more than that and whether you get a diagnosis or not just that you know self exploration self discovery some people might even call it a spiritual journey I think it's one that's well worth doing so yeah Colleen last question that's a good question don't take it personally yeah yeah yeah I mean really like don't take it personally and that's hard you know and like massive shout out to my partner my day was a wonderful person because she has to deal with me on a day on a regular basis no no really she is super cool and I wish she could be here but um but yeah because she has a beautiful heart and is a very kind warm gentle person and then I lash out with these comments and as the words are coming out of my mouth and not just in the sense of like oh I'm gonna have to pay for that later it's like no just a really stupid thing to say that you didn't actually want to say just that you value being quick more than anything else and being quick doesn't mean it doesn't it just means being quick that's it same thing with you know blurring out answers or stuff like that so yeah it's really just about don't take it personally with some folks unfortunately with some people because they don't even realize that it's a problem won't apologize and most of us when someone does something that's kind of ugly we're like well you know you're gonna say yeah yes because what's the difference between the personal and professional we're all personal and professional you know I mean like yeah I mean there's one minor thing we do have to go because I literally have a plane to catch I've never said that in my life but nobody doesn't matter because I like the pressure is I got time I mean if the AV people aren't kicking me out I'm staying but no is that for real like establishing some kind of a thing of saying hey you just had a you moment or something like that just so that they're aware that you are continuing to try to do your job without major emotional interruptions but yeah it's really up to everyone to do that thank you all very much you guys are great you're amazing