Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of all the things ADHD.
Although things Yeah, jazz hands, Jazz,
Jazz hands can see the jazz hands. But there we go. You know what I was thinking? Because because, you know, kids these days, I was like, Maybe we because I record all of these. And then I just I just take the sound filed for the podcast. But there is no reason why we couldn't take the video of this. And like, upload it to YouTube or Twitch.
It's true. It's true.
We could we I don't know what purpose though.
It will be like they do fidget a lot. Yeah, I guess. Or Amy can't decide whether her glasses should stay on or stay off is another thing. What
is Lea looking at it on the other screen?
Yeah, that's right. So they'll both be there with me going leaguered Something else right now. You're only pseudo listening to me.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally listening.
Do you know I just did a deep dive into jazz hands. Are you kidding? I'm absolutely not kidding. You
did a deep dive into jazz.
I did a deep dive into jazz hands. Oh, so I'm learning tap?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah.
And so there's this like moving tab where it's like you know, suggestions usually up with spirit fingers as we call it a cheerleading, I guess is that that's a cheerleading term for jazz hands. And then tap often it's like palms out, but down, like in between your around your thigh level like that for tapping and, and I was like, Yeah, I recognize this gesture. This feels racist to me out and in fact, jazz hands come to us from Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer, famous blackface. Oh, sound movie there. And in fact, that kind of jazz hands is linked with the sort of white glove. minstrelsy history becomes associated with Bob Fauci class.
Well, yes. I mean, most people would be like, That's Bob Fosse. Dabei
that was it. Yes, but before that, it was minstrel shows. Of course, it was white gloves. And from that, I also learned that Steamboat Willie which as you know, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, is almost entirely based on tropes, and even music and characterizations from minstrel shows. So Turkey in the Straw, which is the song in there was a classic minstrelsy song and had several obscene versions, the lyrics of which are now lost. But that comes from minstrel shows and so the character design of Mickey of course with the white gloves and the white around the face, but the super dark everywhere else is based on minstrel stereotypes as is Felix the Cat, the other Amin, which
new Felix the Cat. Yeah. But you know, and Mickey Mouse makes sense. And maybe somewhere far back in my my mind, I knew that but yeah,
don't go back, Mickey. I mean, this is why Tom and Jerry like, the cat wears gloves, right? Like the white gloves are? Its toll roads, right? For some reason, and yeah, so we go back and watch Steamboat Willie, which I mean, you can access and it's very much about you know, a fun guy who's kind of lazy and is trying to get out of doing work right and also like, plays music and does weird dances and is like goofing around. Pulling one over on the man is like absolutely sort of Jim Crow minstrelsy stereotyping. There you go. You're welcome. That
is and you know, now at the beginning of Disney animation films, that Steamboat Willie beginning, right, that was like the first animated one so it's really driving the boat.
Yeah, whistling and driving voter trying not to drive the boat trying to get away from the boss who's telling you to get more work done. I mean, it's really funny that they're claiming that it's like check this out original Disney right, but it was also like, almost entirely ripped off from well,
what in Disney isn't been entirely ripped off?
Sure. Sure. I mean, like, it's one thing to steal from European fairytales. It's another thing to take like a minstrel show straight off the stage and animate it. Yeah.
Okay, fair. Fair. But,
I mean, you know, jazz hands.
Yeah. Jazz hands. Okay.
So it just goes to show you lead don't in a innocently drop metaphors into conversation, right without risking triggering a speech from me about something that I've just been.
You think I know that by now after how many episodes you know, you've been creeping up on 100. Now I've lost track but we must be
creeping up on I mean, creeping because we're recording occasionally. Yeah, we are real. We are a real class act li which is another term that comes to us from tap dancing and a class act is a elegant form of tap dancing usually done in Paris, elegant as distinguished from the street forms of tap dancing, more about rhythm. So a class act actually, as a metaphor for people who are being classy comes to us from tap dancing. You're welcome.
I love it when you pick up new hobbies. I know So we weren't going to talk about tap dancing and the origins of all the things today. But But what were what were we going to talk about today
we're going to talk about and this leads in quite well, actually overclocking overclocking. I'm going to use today as a metaphor for something that many of our listeners may recognize, as we know from hearing from many of our listeners in the way that we pitch this podcast is we are two grown ass women who are professionals in our fields, who have achieved some success in the world, but you're so successful, while not really being diagnosed with our neuro divergence until quite late, which means like, and this is true of many of our listeners as well, which means we have gifts in some area that are strong enough to have disguised from people, that kind of neuro divergence and disabilities that we have. So most of our listeners then will have had the experience of being quite skilled in one domain of their lives. And remarkably less skilled in other domains. And this in fact, like meets the stereotypes of many different types of things. Like if you think about gifted kids, the stereotype often is like the smaller physically frail nerd who has like asthma or allergies, really thick glasses and is nervous all the pocket protector, the pocket protector, right? Or right, so that stereotype turns out to be true. So as it's, I'm thinking about overclocking, because I've been reading about neuro divergence, again, in terms of something called twice, exceptionality. Right, which is children manifests as having both like a disability and a form of giftedness, simultaneously, right. So I was doing some research into this, because I was digging through you may have seen on Twitter, I was digging through some legacy piles of things from my parents, and in one of my old baby albums, where they're tracking, like when my first tooth came in, and like when I finally got toilet train, there was an IQ test. That's all Yes,
I saw that. I saw that on Twitter, the IQ test I was on I was three years
old. And I thought what the fuck is this? And so I did a little bit of research into this test and into giftedness. And so giftedness is a form of neuro divergence, right? And so it was bipolar and ADHD and autism. And these things are often quite linked. And usually when people have what might be positively framed as a gift, an intellectual gift, it is almost like the higher your level of like surprising skill in something right? I hate the word giftedness most people do call it touched. Right? If you're touched with the smarts, right, where you're reading above grade level. This is almost always accompanied by a tendency toward mood disorder, and often physical frailty. It's weird, these things go together, right. And so we tend to think of and this may resonate. For many of our listeners, if you were identified as the Smart kid at school, and you were smart. That when you cried, because somebody bisected a worm on the sidewalk at recess. And people would say like, You're smarter than that. Right? Yeah. So the right You are overreacting, you are yellow dramatic. Why are you so emotional? Like you know, better? Or we expect more from you? I don't know. Did you ever hear that? No, I leave a smart girl like you
a smart girl like me? Well, it's it's strange, because I was, again, the kind of I heard a lot if I just applied myself. Mm hmm. Right. That was that was the big one for me. Like I remember. You know, I learned to read very young, I was sort of very advanced in that sort of way. You know, I went to French immersion. I was I did well, but when I got to the sixth grade, right. And so many things, of course, in elementary school, as you know, are not just about academics, but also about behavior. It's compliance based. Yeah, yeah. It's compliance based and also handwriting. Like there's a whole section on handwriting that I would like barely pass every single, you know,
um, you know, a smart girl like you, Lee if you just applied yourself to the handwriting. Very simple task by
the girl that I still remember her. Also figure skater. Of course, of course. Oh, no. They were all figure skaters. And I was the only girl in my, in my class, who did not at least attempt figure skating for one season. Yeah. And then I was the weird swimmer. But yeah, it was. So I remember she was and she had the perfect It wasn't even handwriting it was just printing. Right? You had the perfect printing. And so there were sentences up on the board that you had to transcribe. Right? And she would, and you had to try to transcribe them three times. Right? I barely would ever get one done in like my terrible handwriting. And she would get the three done. And that was always like, that was held up as the ideal. And I was sort of held up as the like, you know, not so ideal, right? It's like, what am I doing during this half an hour time period? Yeah, go right. I was trying, though, like I was thinking there. And but it was so hard, anyway.
Yeah. But that's the kind of thing I'm talking about here is that that is that often as children, if you are identified as having a kind of above grade level, anything, it is assumed that with that cognitive capacity, problems, also greater emotional maturity, right, and also greater impulse control, and also, you know, greater capacity to think about others needs instead of your own. Right. So there's this idea that, that if you are, you know, touched with the smarts that you've also been touched with the maturity and and the thing that we know from from autism, and this is like, true in most forms of neuro divergence, as well, is that development is asynchronous. Yeah, right.
Well, oh, they know, in ADHD, it's something like, two years behind, like, and then, but it's also a cumulative effect. Yeah, that's right. So like, and that makes sense to me. Because I always felt so much less much like in high school, I would notice it in elementary school. I kind of did, but I really noticed it in high school, and even just getting into university where I was, you know, so much more immature than everybody else was. Yeah. And, and I couldn't, I couldn't figure out why, you know what I mean, it was like, I don't and but it was one of those things where it's also like, I couldn't work on it. Yeah, that's right. Like handwriting, you can sort of beat yourself up. And if I just work on it a little bit harder, or you stop caring and being like, fucking my handwriting is my handwriting. And what do I care? Right? No one else does. And so there was that there was that maturity issue that that came along with it. And so I was always this, I was this weird kid in elementary school, in part, looking back, because I was so immature compared to everybody else. And yeah, and then high school, fell in with the, with the smart kids, with the other smart kids. And then ended up in the advanced classes and all that kind of stuff. And so we were the kind of we weren't the nerdy as nerds because we didn't play d&d Do stock market club, right. But like, okay, cool. Oh, yeah, we had stock market club, we had one of the best stock market clubs in North High School stock market clubs in North America,
like, thinking about this.
Now, back, then we were like Jesus Christ guy,
you're not even in it, but you're like, still bragging about it? Yeah. So like, yeah, this business about emotional immaturity also, is if you were a sort of neurotypical kid, and you were a little bit emotionally mature, people would take care of you. Right. But when you are, you know, touched with the smarts touched with this, people are actually substantially less patient. Yes, your emotional immaturity because there's this idea that, you know, you're high functioning, you're low functioning, right? So here's the return of the functioning labels, right? So if you if you're an excellent reader, but you keep having fights with your friends, because you don't understand what they're trying to tell you, or you have tantrums, because your best friend wants to have another friend at the same time. And you can't handle relationships that are like triangular instead of just paired. And it's like, Oh, for God's sake, right. Like, get over. I don't know why you're being like this. You're so dramatic, or you're immature or like you're, you have a bad character, because like everybody else can deal with this except you, right? Yeah. So people who have sort of asynchronous development in that way, it is like, the more advanced you are in one area, it seems the less tolerant that everybody else is, or your failures to be at grade level in other areas, and I want to flag out for our listeners that as it turns out, is that is almost 100% True. 100% of the time for people with neuro divergence of various sorts is this asynchronous development. We're almost all like, in our brains, like teenage boys who are starting puberty, you know, we're like, they're still five foot three, but they've size 11 feet.
Oh, yeah. I was wondering where you're going with that one. And I'm like, disgusting and obnoxious. Like it's,
like, completely or like, you know, I dated this guy very briefly when I was in high school, and he like, grew like six inches in one summer. And he would like, hit his head on stuff. Yeah, big cuz he had no sense of where his body was in space like but he was still like squeaky voice and weighed like 120 pounds. Like it was just asynchronous, right? He got really tall, but he didn't get strong or like his voice dropped, but he, like still couldn't figure out how to run the washing machine like, yeah, all of these things where it's like, you're gonna get there. Maybe, right? Yeah. But not all at the same time. And I think for many neurodivergent people, we wind up. Well, a couple things happen. We wind up feeling a lot of shame. Yes. For the asynchronicity of our development, that we believe the things that people tell us that since we're so smart, that there is no reason for us to to cry about roadkill. There is no reason for us to leave the room when the TV gets too scary. Because even though we know it's fiction, emotionally, it affects us quite a lot. You know, or to be so anxious about things or to get depressed, like all of these things. They go together. Yeah, right, they go together. So even though we have probably all been sold the line, especially since we were not maybe weird enough to get flagged for diagnosis, that was praised for our academic successes, and then roundly roasted by everybody.
For everything else, right?
Now, the standard was somehow higher, right? So you don't have to be as mature as a kid in grade three, when you're in grade three, if you can read it a grade eight level, you have to be as mature as a kid in grade eight. Yes, is what people expect. And so like, I wanted to start with that today. Because it's something that I just learned, right. So we often apply the label now, of twice exceptional. So like, my kid got flagged like that. They're like, you know, like, off the charts, capacities in some area, like when they were eight years old, getting tested or something, but also, like, cannot read a goddamn word, right? At the time that like, wow, you know, it's like in the second percentile for this, and then 98th percentile for this. Yeah. And like, there are no in betweens, right. Yeah. All the way through the like, this is a hot mess, right. So it was like, we have to acknowledge it. The child has talents in some areas, but it's like severely behind in others and like it to be like that, always. So my metaphor that I'm thinking about this is overclocking, which is a metaphor from technology. So Overclocking is when you have a processor that's supposed to run at x speed, and you can boost it up to x plus 40, a processor and a computer, a successor as computer. Yeah, so you can make your, you know, mid tier, I don't know MacBook operate, like a top tier, MacBook, you're like, Oh, that's great. Like I can push more function out of this. I've rejiggered the interior of this computer, so that all of these resources are going to achieve exceptionality in this one area. But that's not without cost, right. So like the warranty like well, you can run your computer like that for a little bit. But don't do it all the time, because it will begin to overheat fairly constantly. And when it overheats, you're like at risk of damaging the components of the computer because it's running faster and hotter than it should be or you're gonna burn out the mechanical cooling components, right? Yeah, have cooling problems in the computer. And I think here you go, you're ready. Yep. neurodivergent brains are overclocked brains. Right. So that
I've got my lower lip out right now. And not even pensively? Well.
Yeah, right. So listeners of this podcast who you know, have, you know, managed to mask hard enough and well enough to pass for successful adults who never pay their bills on time. Right, have some experience of having gifts in some area, right, that are compensatory gifts that they employ at better and higher rates than other people. I suggest to you, dear listeners, all of our brains are overclocked. Right. And we're not running it that fast on purpose. I think that that's the way that that we're wired right. So studies like currently are showing that as they measure this like twice exceptionality is not exceptional in that sense is that people with profound gifts in one area, almost always right, have compensatory weaknesses in other areas. Because when your brain is wired in such a way that, you know, as we talked about on this podcast, we've got seven radio stations running in our heads constantly and we can hear each of them individually. That's the kind of capacity to absorb information that leads to many of us lying in bed awake at night worried about nuclear war when people our age are not worried about that.
Oh my god, that was me as a kid not nuclear war, the house burning down but anyway, well,
you know what they call this butley existential depression, existential depression, which is right. So it's often associated with giftedness of various sorts and also with neuro divergence is, is a tendency to see the patterns beyond things beyond the obvious to be able to extrapolate the general rule from the instances which will lead you to things like oh, mutually assured destruction actually just means we have Have to be armed to the teeth with the threat of nuclear war absolutely constant as a means of trying to prevent nuclear war. I don't think that's going to work. And then you're 10 years old and you can't sleep at night because you're wondering if your school is going to blow
up before you're not speaking from experience, are you?
I mean, I wouldn't you know, want to base everything in my own experience.
I know it's now it's probably environment that our kids are worried about is the environmental disaster, right, like, worried about nuclear war? Well,
I was also worried about acid rain
because those were the Oh God. Yes. Acid rain. They're
saving the whales. Yes. Call and the pandas and stuff like it's been environmental disaster, Silent Spring since forever, right? DBT and all that stuff. But um, but yeah, so if any of our listeners to remember themselves being the anxious kid, right, or the worried kid or the kid like you have rejection sensitive dysphoria is another. Yeah. Another type of existential depression, right, that kind of comes from being acutely emotionally sensitive to things.
Can I tell you? Can I tell you a horror story that I experienced yesterday? That's right. Yeah. All of this,
I hope it has a happy ending. We
not It's not over yet. It's sort of it sort of does have a happy ending. But it's, it's an ongoing issue. So live in the States, we have had a lot of health issues. And so have been dealing with the insurance company, in an in network and out of network and things happening out of state that were beyond our control and trying. So I've been sort of dealing with. And the way our insurance company works is if it's out of network, and and there's money owed, they don't pay the provider directly, they send us a check, and then have to like we cashed the check, and then send them the check. Oh, I'm bad at that. Oh, I'm not great at it. But so here's the thing, okay. Because of various circumstances, they don't know where to send the bills to. So I'm not getting any bills. Oh, but I'm getting checks. Oh, no. So I have to try to track down where all of these places are. Now, this isn't even the worst part. Right? This is not the worst part. Yesterday, we get a bill that was forwarded to us because it went to like an I understand site where yeah, it went somewhere. But it managed to get to us. This is the first time I've seen this bill, I did not get a check from the insurance company for it. So I wasn't looking for it or expecting it. Right. And so I get it, and it's for a not insignificant amount of money. Oh, sure. And so I call them and this is the first I've seen this bill. Now there's like a like this is 30 days past due. All right, but this is the first time I've seen it. So I call them and they're like, oh, there's nothing we can do. We've already sent it to collections.
I'm sorry, what now? Yeah. Oh, Christ, you're gonna have to go back to Canada, your credit is ruined?
Well, and so I'm like, now I am panicked. Yeah, right. Because not only like, I've never seen this bill. I didn't know it existed. But now I think should I have known it existed? Should I have gone into my insurance company and seeing what claims are filed and seeing if there was any that had outstanding balances on them, that I should be looking for to contact them to see if I owe them fucking money? That's going to go into collections? How many other things could be in collections right now? Like, how much money do we owe? So now I'm in our insurance, looking at all the claims and having any more heart attack? Because sometimes it says We owe this much. But that's not really what we owe? No, because you can't, because yes, they're imaginary numbers. But like, I've never received a bill from any of these places, or these places, putting me into collections, what's going on with with this? And so I am freaking out. I am crying because of course, I know, I am bad at paying bills. And so my fault. Yeah, exactly. So even though this clearly. I mean, I say clearly and even then I'm like, No, it's probably your fault. But even though this is like clearly not my fault. Now, it's in collections. Now I have to deal with like calling collections. But now I can appeal to the insurance because it's in collections. And it's not coming from a medical bill. And now I don't know who I owe what to and if I'm in collections for other things and just don't know it, because they don't know how to find me. Etc, etc. So I'm spiraling. So I spent two hours on the phone, that the happy ending is, is that I found someone somewhere within all of this various system, who couldn't help me directly, but has worked in insurance Health insurance for so long, that she could tell me here are the things that you need to say. Right logic code, actually, yeah, exactly. The magic code. She's like, say these words because this is what they have to do. Say these words when this happens, because this is what oh, what it'll show rigor. So she's like, here are all the magic words. She's like, you know, should I explain where the situation goes? Yes, that's bullshit. Here's what you have to tell them. If this happens again, this is what you tell them. This is how you do it. So that's that's the happy ending of that. So I haven't done any of that yet. Because I told my husband, I'm like, Look, you're calling and you're doing that. Because like, I did the cry yesterday. That's right. I did the crying and the crying didn't do anything. Which, you know, and then I'm also crying on the phone to him, right? Like, I'm sorry, like, I can't believe. And he's like, No, this is bullshit. We're just not paying it. And I'm like, Oh, it's a collections. We can't do that. You know, on and on. Yeah. So but I mean, again, it's, it's that kind of, I don't know, like, there's, that's the part of my brain that doesn't work very well. And then if it's like, now I have to try and work at it. And I'm working at it, and it burns me out. Like I was just burnt. After those two hours. I was just like, even that lasted two hours, I thought was miraculous.
Like it's miraculous.
But like, I just like I just can't. And of course, again, my husband's not understanding why I am so upset about this. But he's like, you don't need to be this upset. He's like, we'll fix
it need to be a smart girl like you like, Yeah, well,
and again, he's like He He's we talked about this a lot, where he's like, the only normal quote unquote, or neurotypical person in the house have three very different neurodivergent people where he just doesn't get Yeah, like, and he admits it, right. He's like, I just don't get how your brains work. Like, because he is we joke that he's that I think I've said this before, like, the joke in the house is that he's a robot. Yes. Right. Like, this is the problem. You know, you can get mad and frustrated about it. But we will clearly see the path moving forward in order to fix this problem. And this is not effective. Yeah. Or feelings will solve the problem. Yeah, exactly. So but yeah, it was just like, it was like the worst afternoon ever, because we got the, you know, got the bill. And I was like, Okay, finally another bill. It's a little high. But you know, I'll go back to the insurance company. And so let me call this place up, say, Hey, what's this bill, and they're like, it's in collections. And then I was just like, FOC
is just proud to lead to know that I know something about how this particular scam works. I read a whole investigative series of The New York Times, but
all right, actually go forward. That to me, that would be great. Because also give me help. Well, they
the number that you get on the bill from the hospital is an inflated imaginary number. Yes. Right. And they make a token effort to reclaim it. And then they send it to collections. And you know, collections, purchases debt, right? For a fraction of its cost, right? So often, hospitals are setting the bills at a level so that when they sell the debt to a collections agency, the amount of money they'll get from the debt being purchased will in fact cover their costs. Yeah, but now the collections agency is 100% going to spend the rest of their life hounding you for the higher.
Yeah, well, no, apparently I can recall it like that. That's like the that is something that can be done, but like you did not. And I mean, he doesn't even say final, final notice on it or anything like that, right. There's no final notice. There's no nothing on it. So
I'm trying that hard because they make their money back by sending it to collections and somebody else's problem. It's Yes, Grif.
Yes, seriously. So But anyways, but like, that's, that is my brain burning itself out? Right, right. Like that? Is my brain burning itself out?
Yeah. And a lot of the shame that we feel about these things that we're not good at comes out. Also, we tell ourselves in the form of like, a smart girl like me should have been able to handle this, right? And then you get so wrapped up in your own shame about it that even when it's not your fault, you're blaming yourself, and then you get very emotional about it. Right? Yeah, raise your hand. If that's you every
day. Yeah, we're gonna lift our hands and then pretend like,
oh, yeah, lifted your hand. Right. And this is like, not helpful. So like, one of the first things that I'd like I just really want to let our listeners know is that if you feel like your emotional reactions are out of line with your capacity for rational thought, those two things go together. Right? You are probably more sensitive. You are probably asynchronously developed, and it would be great because eventually we can catch up with ourselves, right? The patterns that we set in our youth where everyone is like, it's great that you're so smart. It's like too bad. You're such a crybaby. Yeah, somebody's smart, like you should be even less of a crybaby than a normal person. Right. So that we never learned that we are actually just developing asynchronously and that sometimes the kinds of existential worries right so so kids who are ADHD as we know are more likely to be diagnosed with a mood disorder, right like anxiety or depression. Shouldn't you know what? Soar gifted kids? Yep. Same deal. And so our autistic kids and part of the theory here now is that people who spend a lot of time inside their own heads running through all of the possibilities, actually do understand a little bit better how the world works, and that's why they're depressed. Yeah, right. That's
why I'm always anxious.
Right? Right. Because like, How many times have you like expressed a worry to somebody to be like, Wow, I have like, never even thought that in my life, right? Ignorance is bliss. Like, yeah, like, literally so like, it's not simply that, you know, you get upset about things because your brain is overclocked, and you're, you're burning out the circuits. But also you get upset about things, because you do actually probably think faster than other people and maybe more deeply. And when you do you actually see how shitty everything is. Right? Yeah, so your worries are not unreasonable. They're just not shared by people who haven't like thought it all the way through. And this is why we say ignorance is bliss. Yeah, right. Because it is. So I was just thinking about the ways we arrest our own development sometimes, because like, what we've learned, maybe eventually, is that our brains are a little bit broken. Right, and that we have to be gentle with our brains. But yeah, this emotional business. Oh, that's just because we're a crybaby right is a completely separate issue. Right. It's not gonna go together. So just like the the overclocked computer there, something's going real fast. But other things are burned out. And it's almost unavoidable. Right? The other danger with overclocking sometimes is like, well, you know, my computer is gonna burn out soon. So I better like, extra speed this up so that I can get all the things done before it dies. Right? It's like, we really lean into right gates, this smells bad. And there's smoke coming out of it. But look how big it was. Right? Yeah. And I think we've probably all at some point in our lives compensated for the asynchronicity. Right compensated for being melodramatic by being even smarter. Yeah, right. Or we've like, compensated for, you know, our inability to read very well by being even more impulsive and risk taking, right. Like, we lean into the one thing that people have kind of praised us for that makes us different in a good way. Yeah. And when you do that, you are producing the overclocking you to write. So sometimes I think the way I think about my brain and bedeviled right now by three different writing projects. Yeah, I mean, which are all sort of continent two of them are almost the same. But once like a keynote, and once a an article once a book chapter and, and the reason I'm having trouble finishing all of them is I'm having too many ideas at the same time. And having ideas is exciting to me, and I then start to chase them, and then gets to have even more ideas in it. And then I'm like, Okay, how many references is
your are you? Well,
that's the thing. How this like, 10 page thing now is like 11, subheadings. And I'm like, That's too many. We can't cover that many topics, right? But I just keep leaning into things.
It's like, okay, so a 20 minute talk is 10 to 12 pages. Yeah. Well, I could do 13 and just talk real fast. Yeah,
but better than that. So like, on the one hand, I know that I have to exercise some message discipline here. But my overclocked brain just, it feels a little bit like, you know, like the red shoes. I've got these magical dancing shoes. And once I put them on, like, Wow, what an amazing dancer you are, but it can't fucking stop. Right? When I start having ideas, I can't stop and people are like, Wow, that's amazing. I never thought of that before. That's a whole other article that I'm like, bitch. I know. Right? I can't stop. Right. So maybe I've developed this habit of leaning a little bit too, into being clever about stuff and researching things. And I've already given you several speeches already about things. I've got no business having this much knowledge about yet that I could help myself from, from chasing. But it's a bit debilitating at this point, right when I'm having too many ideas, and I cannot chase them all down. So now I'd like to many writing projects that I mean, that's the reason I started giving myself shorter turnarounds for them, because I cannot let this get out of control because I just keep dancing. Yeah, right. Or if you've watched Sandman, if you watched a Sandman yet?
No, I have not watched Sandman.
Okay, so there's one it's a one off in the comic. So it's like not a longer arc. It's a shorter one, where there's a sort of unsuccessful writer, fiction writer who kidnaps a muse. Right? As you do, as you do, right, as you do locked with magic in a room. You know, there's some raping assembled here, but the idea is as long as he keeps her trapped, like he's going to have ideas, right? The Muse is literally in his upstairs. So he's like, you know, become a claim. And he's saying, Yeah, I'll let you go. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. Just one more book. You know, I'll let you go. I'll let you go. Just one more book. And it turns out she was Morpheus, his wife at one point and Anyhow, he comes to rescue her. And the curse that he lays on this writer then is like, you want ideas? Here they are. And he gives them all the ideas As all the ideas on the right, and like in the TV show, you can see he kind of melts down on stage because the ideas hit him. And he just like sort of Tourette's, like just starts spitting them out. And they don't make sense. And they're coming too fast. And he's like writing them writing them down. Like you can't stop having ideas. And he just keeps writing them down. And people like, Wow, that's so clever. And then they're like, Wow, this is alarming. And then like, you find him in a stairwell a little bit later, scrawling ideas with his own blood on the wall, because he ran out a pen, right? Like, open up a spot on his fingers. We can scroll all these ideas. I'm like, Well, fuck, that's me. Right. So I mean, I'm not I haven't got the Muse trapped in my attic. But
know that it's the Muse trapped in our head. Yeah, comes from being too much of a good thing. Too much of a good thing, right?
Yeah. And so when we sometimes try to compensate, I think for our failures in other realms, right? I'm not good at paying bills, but boy, am I good at ideas. Yeah. Tap dancing here in my red shoes are like I'm writing books like Richard Murdoch, the you know, the guy who kidnapped us and it's like, oh, so great. So overclocked, sometimes you're choosing to overclock, and sometimes your brain overclocks itself. So another thing that tends to accompany weirdly, neuro divergence is auto immune disorders like, Yeah, so like among them, like eczema or psoriasis, or allergies or stuff. And part of the theory here is that the same way that neurodivergent people often tend to have a little bit more anxiety or depression or worry than others, because your brain is overclocked is that you're thinking about so many things at the same time that you're constantly stressed. Yeah. And what you're doing with this, like constant stress response to the world is actually buggering up your immune system into becoming hyper activated. So the idea here is like, you know, people with ADHD tend to have like these itchiness disorders, and autoimmune disorders at a higher rate than the rest of the population. So do autistic people. So do gifted kids tend to have more allergies and asthma, and they're like, Oh, you all are ruining your immune systems by thinking too hard. And worrying about the world. Yeah. Which is like, I'm sorry, what?
Well, and so here's the thing that I learned in therapy, right, is that the mind is more powerful than the body. But in this case, the body sometimes has a mind of its own. Yeah. Right. Where, oftentimes, and this is this is something that I had to like, that was when I was doing the like, the random times of the day, take few deep breaths and say, I'm okay, I can do this. Because the body is still the brains like you're safe. But the body is like no. And so it's it was it's this really weird kind of thing, where it's like, once you recognize it, not that you can make the eczema go away or make the allergies go away. But it's sort of like how do you know, it was this interesting aha moment for me of like, well, I can retrain my body. Yeah. Right. I can retrain my body to sort of recognize what my mind going. And I think that that's also a kind of, almost, like you're saying, like, these are habits that we get when we're really young. Yeah. And then so we've trained our body in a certain way. And then our mind matures. And it's like, okay, I'm not necessarily in danger all the time. I'm, you know, like, I can sort of see, but I can also regulate that a little bit better than I could even 10 years ago. Right, and my 20s and 30s. And now I'm in my, now I'm in my bucket. 40. So it's kind of like, alright, well, you know, yeah, it's been good. And then, so yeah, so and then it's like, okay, well, now my, my mind is at this maturity level, but my body is still behaving like I'm 15. Yeah. In terms of its reactions to all of this. It's expressing stress, it's expecting the disasters, it's expecting all of these things that I've trained it to do.
Yeah, yeah. And in some ways, we don't realize, like, you know, people will say, like, Oh, you're getting chased by a bear. And like, that's a stressful thing. But like, laying in bed at night worrying about nuclear war, is your brains version of running from a bear so you don't realize that actually worrying about something at work to the extent that neurodivergent people tend to ruminate and catastrophize and overclock their worry circuits right, it can produce excema flares right? Yeah. So you know for this podcast, I just panic attacks. Yes, I just took my baseball hat off. I've been wearing a baseball hat all day because I'm having the worst kind of psoriasis outbreak on my scalp of all time. And it might be because I'm writing three things to deadlines simultaneously and trying to get all of my grading done and I feel like I keep saying to Tom in the evening like my brain is overwhelmed I need to go for a walk or something because like I started up my brain I too many ideas. Yeah, and now I'm freaking out. Yeah, right. And I go for walking and like it's not a coincidence that I'm cuz you know, Tom's always joking about oh, I know Amy's thinking because she's scratching the top of her head. Okay, like chicken and egg sort of dilemma. It's because when I get really into thinking about stuff like when I'm really producing academic work I do I scratch the top of my head. I sort of
like funny though, because that is like the universal symbol of thinking of something about things right? Like that is literally the universal symbol for it. Yeah, it is like, you watch cartoons. It's a real head scratcher. Yeah, it's a real head scratcher. Like in comics, right? If they're thinking they've got a finger up to their head, right? You don't even have to, you know, we know that they're scratching it. They're not tapping it. They're scratching it, right? That's what they're doing. It's a
weird bit of a stim for me that when I'm thinking really hard, I'm scratching my head. But also when I'm thinking really hard, I tend to get anxious and then I get a psoriasis flare at the same time that I can't stop scratching my head, and then I make it worse. Do you see? So I cannot think without scratching my head. And if I think too much, I get psoriasis. If I scratch my psoriasis on my head, it gets worse. So today, I did put all my special creams on my head that makes my hair really weird. I'll put a fucking baseball cap on, because I keep catching myself trying to scratch the top of my baseball cap, right? I just can't stop. Right. And I would say this is like pretty much endemic, right? So do the Pat. I have to do the pat or like, like, like groom the cat or something now that my stim energy out of my body, but like, you can do what I do and just pick the sides of your fingers. That's besides your fingers. Like same same sort of deal. Yeah. So so it's, it's true. Like if we think like, we learn these patterns in our youth, and I'm thinking Oh, thank God, I do so much like yoga and meditation and YouTube, because what I'm trying to interrupt is my stress circuits, right? So my brain thinks too many thoughts. And my brain thinks thoughts at a level that my body can't handle. I cannot keep up. Yeah, my own brain sometimes and and when I can't, it comes out as psoriasis and eczema or allergy attack, or I catch a cold, right? So my immune system like is starting to attack me because it's experiencing a threat, but the threat is, I'm worried about my ideas, right? Which is like so stupid, but this is how neurodivergent brains work. Right? It's like the apparatus is a little too much for that we were like a Lamborghini engine in a lawnmower body. Right? And like it just
at least give me a Pinto. Come on, at least give me a Pinto.
Right. And, and like it manifests differently for different people like a lot worse. Athletes with ADHD are like very physically strong and very innovative and like, can't stop moving. And all of these things I'm like, sometimes their bodies outpace their brains, right? So their capacity to assess risk, and do forward planning around consequences, is not as well developed as their ability to jump between the second stories of two different buildings, right. So, you know, sometimes when our brains grow faster than our emotional maturity, we get problems sometimes when our brains just produce too much stuff that our bodies cannot keep up with. We our immune systems go haywire sometimes when our our bodies and our sort of physical capacities outpace our risk management. We ruin relationships and sometimes injure ourselves grievously. Right so I you know, people often you know, say oh, so and so is like, so gifted, physically, it's not always a gift. Like think about think about athletes who who are so strong so early, like even somebody like like Tiger Woods, these Fein ALMS Yeah, is that they become because of their remarkable physical gifts. Other parts of their education or maturation are underdeveloped, or people are like, Oh, just because you, you are so good at golf. You don't need adult supervision on tour, or what have you, right? Because like this, this is mistaking
of prodigies, like ask ask any prodigy? Any prodigy, right?
Is that people really overestimate? Yeah, the kind of Global list of their talents and they don't have it right. So I think most neurodivergent people by definition, even if you're not a prodigy in any one area, it development is asynchronous, that you have a mismatch between what some parts of you can do and other parts of you can do that we're always in some sort of state of overclocking. Right, yeah.
And then this is where we can also think about, like, you know, we're talking about healthy coping mechanisms. Yeah. Right. Meditation, yoga and all that. But this is also where unhealthy coping mechanisms, alcoholism, drug abuse, self medication. Yeah. Those kinds of things. Also come in and you see that you do see that too, in particularly gifted individuals. I mean, the history of gifted I mean, we hear it with artists and musicians and all of that, I mean, it's littered with, right drug use and alcoholism and reckless behavior and all of those kinds of things. Because, like, and I you know, I think particularly the the silencing of your brain, yeah, right. Like, I can't turn my brain off. Well, the you know, this alcohol sure helps. Well, I
joke about like, why, you know, academics tend to abuse alcohol, right? Right, because because we work constantly, right? Academics is like, the joke is like you, you know, your hours of work are your own. It's any 60 hours that you want, right? Like, yeah, the jokes exceed 80
hours you want. Yeah. So
it's not like, you know, you know, going to a secure workplace where you work with spreadsheets and have like pay information on the moment you go home, you can't do it anymore. Like when your job is ideal.
Well, and this is like, where what we were talking about last week, what work looks like for us is much different. Because it's almost like we are literally working all the time. That's right, even when we're doing our hobbies, which is, you know, like, the that's the double edged sword, right? Like, my work doesn't look like work. But you know, I'm doing a hobby, but I am also doing work I am, you know, I'm allowing my brain time to process and do all of these things and have my eureka moment. Yep. Yeah. However, that also means that when I'm not trying to work, yeah, my brain is like, no, no, we're resting. Now that means it's time for me to process and always like,
Oh, guess what, here are all the intrusive thoughts. You've kept up? Earlier today. Right. But you can close the laptop, but you can't close. Right. Right. And that's why a lot of academics in particular, the the the drug of abuse usually is alcohol, because Alcohol is a depressant, it will make you stupid, right? Yeah. You just get dumber once you start drinking. And when you get dumber, you're not as worried about stuff. Then you fall asleep. Yeah, like, yeah, we're not
doing we're not doing cocaine. Like that's just
Jesus. No, right? That feels like a bad idea. Like when you're in grad school, and we're just like, wants to do Ritalin or whatever. Right. But like, once you're like, a professional faculty that you're like, Man, I It's the shoes. I got the shoes on. I can't stop dancing. Yeah, yeah. What can I do? And I throw myself into the ocean? Just yeah, the floor out from under me. Right. And yeah, and drinking is like that. But I think like these problems are solvable. But the first thing to recognize is that maybe we've all been told at some point in our lives that because we are so good at whatever it is, we're good at, we should be better at the other things that we are, in fact, below level,
or we need to lean in even more into the thing that we're good at.
That's right. That's right. So there's no no idea that, yeah, probably, those two things are like, probably your giftedness in this area, or your extra capacity in this area comes as like, you know, like associating and sign right, like two sides of a sheet of paper, you cannot separate them, they're both still there, no matter what right is that there's going to be some area of under function, immaturity or asynchronous development that instead of being like, God, why are you like that, it's like, we should all recognize that. Invariably, that's how it works is you're going to have some type of weird weakness, that everybody says that because you're so good at this other thing, you should never have struggled with that. And we can't solve the problem. When we assume that the problem is some special individual character failing that we should be able to do it right. If the idea is that you should always have been able to do it, then there's no way to fix it. Because there's no reason for it to be the way that it is right now. When you're like, oh, maybe I like lie in bed worrying about nuclear war all night, because I can understand written information a lot better than I am emotionally able to process what risk really means, right? Maybe I need to,
and because I read so much and capable of reading so much where other people are just like they stop reading because it's just like, you know, my brain is well, right that that that classic farside commercial, commercial comic where he lifts up his hand and says, Sir, my brain is full. Yeah, right. Yeah, like,
yeah, at the same time. You're the kid at the Meadville School for the gifted push. Pull door. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yes, exactly. Let's go together. Yeah, they go together. Yeah. So like, this is like, why I'm telling you about tap dancing today, because I'm trying not to constantly be researching the things that I have to write about, because that makes me anxious. Right? So something like no brain do something else now, right? Stop thinking in this particular domain. But I'm like really worried now. But like, how much of my life I've sort of wandered feeling bad about the things that I'm not good at? Because I should have been better at the whole time when when really know that it's structural. It's Yes, rupture all that people with ADHD are often emotionally and mature, quick to tears. It is, you know, structural, that people with strong cognitive capacities become worriers with the excema. Right? Like, that's, that's just a thing that happens. And because it happens, I don't have to blame myself for it, and neither do you. Right? And that there are things we can learn like meditation, right? Were you saying like, the brain is very powerful. But sometimes if you teach your body to just slow the breathing down, maybe you're not going to get that exam of flair because your body is not constantly in a state of fight or flight because you're worried about how which metaphor you're going to use in your paper on Chechi PT, right is not a reason for my body to react like I'm being chased by a bear. Not but my body has kind of learned that. That's why it's learned. Yeah, ideas are so real to me. Yeah, that I can actually trick my body into things Can not being chased by a bear when I'm sitting in my god damn chair, yanking
in suburbia in suburbia. I'm not
thinking about being chased by a bear. What I'm thinking about is like, Oh, do we it's not that we overestimate chatty btw, it's that we underestimate what writing is, right? I'm like, am I gonna write that down? And now like, I'm itchy over my whole body, I'm gonna break. That is ridiculous.
I'm sorry, I'm not I shouldn't be laughing. But I mean, no, it because I just recognized so much of that, like I said, of my horror story yesterday, right? Like, I think the more we learn, and since we got these diagnosis is it has become easier for us to kind of have that forgiveness. But oftentimes, again, in that moment, in the moment of finding out or in collections, yep. It's like, wow, there's no rational thought anymore. Absolutely. Right. There is no no capacity for rational thought at this point. It is just like, and then again, I slip in and we've talked about this before, is that, okay? I'm panic. So now I need my to do list. Like, I need to do something. Right. So what is my to do list? Okay, I shouldn't bias. Yeah, well, that's it, right. So it's like, I will, I will go into, you know, even though it's, it's something to do, even though it might not be productive, right, I'm gonna go into care first and learn about all these other things I'm going to start panicking about and then I'm going to call, you know, and thankfully, one of the things that I did was actually helpful. But like, Who would have thunk it? Like, yeah, I mean, I, but I don't know, like, the in terms of like, how much energy we've wasted, which is, you know, infinite, we probably could have like single handedly or at least between the two of us, like created, you know, renewable energy source, power the world for a while. And if I have to worry about nuclear war someone No, no, because they would have just been powering the grid off of our own anger and anxiety and energy. Yeah.
All the ADHD people, you're going to be by example, about your action bias, and your list and your phone calling people beside a similar thing. So I am surprising no one, Lee, my experience is different from yours. So I'm just going to be able to get T shirts made with that. And so I'm trying to renew a short grant. Right. So I got a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant in which
for those of you in the US, it is a BFT. It is big fucking deal.
Yeah, it's like if the NIH funded more than two people a year it's like that, right? Yeah, it's a big grants $97,000 Grant. Great. And so I got that, in the fall of 2019. You know, I'm active, right? My mom was actively dying. And it was a pandemic, and so $97,000 that I'm mostly going to be spending on travel, computer equipment and grad students. And I had access to none of that, during the pandemic. And so like my grant runs out after three years, which is to say, like in 2022, and that's spent barely anything, because like, hi, it's a global pandemic. Yeah, man, I can't go anywhere. Yeah, this whole rigmarole of justifying why I should get an extension, or they're going to take the money back. And I'm, yeah, what, and I'm real angry about it. And I don't do it for several days. And then I do it, and I'm really angry about it. And it goes from like, I'm gonna get this one year extension, but I have to tell them, why I need it. And it was like, gestures big. Yeah. And everything. So angry. And so Tom sends me because my husband works in this area, since we'd like the new one is like, Oh, they're saying now like, Oh, if if your grant was during COVID, substantially, then you can apply like for a longer extension. And I wrote a few days don't send the email he wants me to send because I'm still very angry. Angry. Yeah. To avoidance. Yeah. So like, you making lists of like, great. Okay, so here's, I'm going to fix this problem. And I'm like, let me tell you structurally, why this requirement is bullshit, right? And I do a whole research project on like, so I send the email, and it's like, it's gonna be fine. And Tom's like, yay. And I'm like, No, fucking not yet. I'm still really angry.
Because this is bullshit. This is you're describing my daughter. Like, this is this is her like, she will not like, and this is this is her thing with with teachers. Right? She does this with teachers, is that if a teacher does not help her in the way that she wants them to, then it's just like, it's they're not doing their job. Yeah. And fuck you.
Yeah. And you're like, well, this isn't helping you. Right? So do
honey. Not but but now I do have an understanding. Right? I understand that this is quote unquote, irrational, but also exactly how she functions. Right? Me
too. Right? I do not have an action bias. I dig my heels in and I'm like, let me tell you why this system is broken. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let me tell you why. What you're asking me to do is inhumane. Stupid, stupid wasting and expensive, right. And so even when I when I'm mad, right, yeah. So I tend to dig my heels in and you see,
yeah, and then and then my husband would be like, just write the damn email. That's my husband. He's just like Just write four sentences about how COVID did this. And there you go. It'll take you 30 seconds. And I don't know why this is such a big deal.
No, I'm like my whole soul revolts against Yes. You're like,
unjust. And I'm typing with what like,
philosophical level it is unjust that I refuse to participate in this system by which I am harming myself by even pretending that this is something that I need to justify how much money are we wasting with all of this paperwork right now when they could just give a blank and this is like coercion culture. This is about compliance and surveillance. And this is bla bla bla bla and translate. Great. Did you send the email yet? I'm like, No. And then I get hives. Right. Yeah. So that's not really helpful. So just leaning in, I'm justifying my emotions by turning into this like structural analysis, which is like, great if I was the bureaucrat in charge of short, but I'm fucking somebody who wants to not lose my $97,000. Grant because I couldn't spend it in a global pandemic. Yeah, I'm too busy explaining the structural wrongness Yeah, of it is not helpful. Yeah, I'm overclocking there. Yeah, I'm like, I'm leaning into something that feels good to me, which is understand why things are happening, but does not improve my no position there at all right, and you do the other you jump into bias of action immediately, even if you need a small cooling off period.
Yeah. Well, and great. Yeah. And I again, it's sort of like, get because it's funny. It's because cuz, again, the conversation went between my husband and I was like, well, they can't do that. Like, well, they did. Yeah. Well, they can't like, Well, they did. Well, we're not paying it. I'm like, okay, but there's a collection, we
only cannot drink the wine in front of you. Right? Yeah. Isn't this sort of like Battle of Yes. About what's happening? We're poisoned.
Yeah. He's like, Well, why didn't you do this? And I'm like, Well, I mean, to her, just like just telling me not paying. And I'm like, No, I can do like, I can't do that. Like, that's not like, you know, I will avoid bills. I understand that I eventually have to pay them. Like, this isn't like avoidance of like this. You know, like, if you give me a bill, I am morally bound to pay it. So you have different problems. Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. You're like, something needs to be done. And he's like, this should never have happened. Yeah, both things can be true. Yes, exactly. Right. Like operating in different mental universe. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
And, and to be to be fair to him, too. I've had I only let him know about all this, an hour and a half into the process. Right. So I've had an hour and a half to process all of this stuff. Whereas he is going through his process of this is bullshit. This shouldn't be happening. Why the fuck did this happen? He's coming in good old. Yeah, he's coming in cold, right? Where it's like I've already I've, I very quickly go through that, because now I have to do action right now I need to do what I need to do in order to not solve it. But like, fix it figured, like, you know, do some right. Yeah. Whereas you'd be like, what is what is the history of like, people scamming in the collections agencies? I'm just like, I'm gonna call it a collection agency trying to figure out the fuck is going on? Like, yeah, and
so riot, though. So both of us are behaving in ways that are mystifying your partners that look almost perversely unhelpful. Yeah. Right. And so the other thing that I was reading about, which like will probably apply, I think, to, to those of our listeners who have neurodivergent children, is that this is, this is where the rabbit hole started. It was like a little bit I found this like, idiotic IQ test for three year olds in mind. But also this like, like you would not it's so stupid. I can't, I'm just so enraged about all of it. It's like, traces your mental age by month because you're so young. Like, it's just absolutely idiotic. But there was this thing showed up in my Apple news that was about something like, you know, giftedness and, and behavior problems. I was like, oh, I want to know about this.
Yes. So it like
so we'll say like, there's this asynchronous development where you can make yourself so worried you can't sleep and now you have hives or like, you cry when your friends like, don't share a toy with you. And then he's like, why? What is wrong with you? So like, often will, will deny resources to kids who like might be talented in some areas, or very capable in some areas, because they have quote, unquote, behavioral issues. Yeah. Right. And those behavioral issues, again, the research is finding are almost invariably associated with talent, right, like so people who have exceptional talents in some areas, or people whose brains are overclocked in one way or another do tend to have what adults consider to be behavioral issues, which might come from being socially overwhelmed by things right they just have a complete meltdown because you're at a birthday party. Right? Or you are acting out in class. You're getting poor grades like you Lee you have bad handwriting because like you're really trying to focus on copying sentences for half an hour, but your brain won't do that for you. Yeah, sit still and it
hurts like They've actually done research that it's like people with ADHD, it literally hurts to try to write. Yeah. So now in a way that people are expecting you to try to write,
I'm gonna have to teach you handwriting. I'm actually quite good at this thing. And, you know, I've done a deep dive into handwriting as well. I just rolled my eyes folks know you. Here's like an insight I had the other night when I was thinking about what we might talk about today. And that was like, oh, fuck, since I have my meds, my brain works. The way that my brain can work at its best. I have not used to thinking this fast. Oh, yeah. Not used to it. So I've shit I know so much. Now I'm still dancing on these red shoes.
Today do some writing, the music keeps getting faster and
faster, and I'm still going and my feet are bleeding. You know, in addition to my scalp, I have my baseball hat on and right. So
that's what you should draw, tap dancing at me with a plate of baseball, the baseball game. Oh my God, that's
great. This way, we don't put the video up, I need to go picture that now. So handwriting we tend to teach it now is like it's so straightforward and easy. Everybody can just do it. Here's the letters. Here's the thing to do them in. But actually, there's like a whole ergonomics associated with it. Right that there are ways that you're meant to sit in your chair, angle your paper, and move the sheet of paper as you go. That used to be taught as part of penmanship, because cursive writing is developed in its modern form in the late 19th century as a means of producing an ergonomically sustainable way to let people produce texts with their hands for eight hours a day. Which is not how we experience it now. No, so cursive is developed to produce less strain on your body.
And it's all about productivity. But anyway. Yeah,
I mean, it's excepted it's actually quite a an ergonomic system when it's not correctly, which is not out people are taught and print is actually murder on the hands. It's not print is designed to be read in books. It is not a hand that you can produce by hand without significant strain on your body, actually, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah, so you're like in this class, they're like, right, these sentences and like your handwriting looks like chicken scratch, and you weren't even trying and you were kicking the seat in front of you and you were rolling your eyes.
No, I was chewing I was chewing chewing your hair. No, I was chewing the bows on any of my dresses that this was the handwriting year was the same year that my mom got a note from the school saying any bows, the 80s, late early 80s. And he bows on any of my dresses or like anything that they had to be taken off. Because I would sit there and chew them the whole time.
Yeah, grade three i socially anxious I was getting bullied pretty hard. I this one sweatshirt I like to wear that had a hood. And it was like this kind of bluer type of thing. And it had strings Even though you couldn't actually tie up the hood. They weren't decorative strings with a knot on the end. It was like yeah, not a string. But it was Oh
my my grade three self is like No, me. No.
Well, then I just chewed on the one string until it got too wet to chew. And then I would put it down and chew the other ones. The other one when she was split by the time I got home, but that was it. Yeah. Right. So. So that looks like a behavior problem. Yeah, I used to pull my hood up to my strings and cry a lot. And people be like your kids so fucking weird. She's so like, you know, she's a behavioral problem. Right? And again, that goes together. Yeah. Invariably, it goes together. So if you have children who are like, I don't know what's wrong with my kid, like, they're so smart, but like they're acting out like, yeah, they can't help it. Yet the environment is not suitable to where they're at. They are overclocked on their brains, they can't handle the things that they can handle. Right? Yeah. One part of their embodiment of self cannot handle what a different part of themselves is able to do. And they are not acting out. They are reacting and they're trying to cope. Right. So if one thing we can stop for our adult listeners today, it is this idea that because you were always good at the one thing, that being bad at the other things was somehow worse. Right? Yeah. Though, being bad at the other things I will say goes part and parcel with your neurodivergent brain. And for children, if you have a child who is neurodivergent or touched with the smarts or touch with the athletic, right, like, and they're acting out, like it is inevitable, inevitable and they need to be supported. Right? They need to report it.
And here's the thing that I also tried to tell myself when my kids do act up or act out or were you know, I mean, it's been a challenge and it continues to be a challenge but I I was too scared to act out. Yeah. Because in the, in the in the in the very early on. I learned that I would be severely punished for acting out. And so I internalized every a mask that I masked it I internalized it I you know, I just swallowed it all down. You know, I would Yeah. And, and, you know, the, you know, like, you can hear almost the parents well, you never behaved like this. I'm like, Yeah, well, cuz I knew the consequences fingers
down to nubs Yeah. Right,
or, you know, or I would, you know, I would stay like cry myself to sleep. I mean, you know, I had, I literally had a nervous breakdown my senior year of high school that you have no idea that I had. Yeah, right that you still, you know that you had no idea that I had, because that that was just that's what happened. And so it's like, and, and the hard part is like, and I think this is the hardest part for me. And it's something that I'm learning that I've offered to write about. And I think I will end up writing about it because the book just got accepted at a publisher and a collection. Yeah, about neuro divergence and academia and all that kind of stuff. It's gonna be great, anyway, is that, you know, there is this thought, and again, it's, it's, it's ableism. But it's this thought that if like, well, if I parent, my kit, my neurodivergent kids differently than I was parented, then everything is going to be okay. Nope, no, everything was worse. And I was like, how did that fucking happen? Now, pandemic didn't help all you know, the circumstances are different, and all that kind of stuff. But it's, but I think that that is the other narrative that I am struggling to kind of get over or move beyond, which is like, you know, I will be a different parent, I'm not gonna say better, yeah, we mean better. But I will be a different parent, I will parent in a different way, I will try to parent my neurodivergent children the way I would have hoped them parent or listen to their cues more than you know, and allow them to have their cues and allow all of this kind of stuff. And that that will lead to better outcomes.
Well, look, I think that's really profound. Lee actually because like, I think I'd have a strong desire to to protect my kid from the things I struggle with, like my social and flexibility or my fear of everything, or like whatever it was, and, and I think that we can't, you know, our kids with their overclocked brains going to have those sensitivities. Like I recognize in my own child, like when I was a little kid, I would refuse to go to movies with people because I found them emotionally overwhelming and terrifying and often ran away from the television. I watch a lot of TV shows from peeking around the threshold of the kitchen, because I became like, really terrified that Charlie's Angels were going to get shot like I mean, they never did and people wouldn't believe me like it just always ends. Well, like, you know, I'm like, Yeah, but I can't handle the tension right now. Yeah. And, and nobody made space. It's why reads
as Why read spoilers. That's why I read. I read spoilers. I'm like, Okay, so now I know what I'm getting when I go into
it. prepare myself. Yes, right. Yep. And I wish that I wasn't like that and always thought that's because I'm just like, an oversensitive dumb, dumb, and like, my kid is like that, too. And, and like, their dad didn't understand, like, knowing that, you know, what, just don't make them watch it. Yeah. Right. So they're gonna have that struggle. And, and like, I was explaining something about this to them the other day, too. I'm like, you know, you think you're really sensitive about stuff? Like, but also you have some some gifts in these areas. And the struggle is part of that. And it's okay. Yeah, don't feel like you have to be there. And they were like, Oh, wow, like I can? Because I can't stop that. asynchrony. Right. And neither can you. You can't be like, I'm gonna smooth this. So like, my kid does not cry about thunderstorms. Like, no, you can't, but you can maybe make a space where you can help them understand that it's not their fault that even though they're incredibly good at golf, right, they're not good at reading, or whatever it happens to be right to sort of say, like, you know, it's okay that you're the tallest person and you're like this amazing basketball player, but like, you're still really just an eight year old guy, like, so that they can get through it and feel a bit safer about it instead of the way we felt, which was everybody told us well, because you are good at this or you're doing such a good job of passing for normal. We want you to comply with all these other norms. And when you don't, we're gonna blame you for because somebody like you, it's like, oh, it's our early early episode about but you're so successful. Yeah, same thing, right. Yeah. You know, you're so hyper competent in this one area, that you're not allowed to even be regular competent in other areas.
Yeah. Or even below competent. Yeah, no, you're not even below
God, right? Like you. You have to be hyper competent at at everything. And if you've done a good job masking, like, people don't know how much that costs you right? So like, as you say, cry yourself to sleep. Because, you know, people told you you're not allowed to be that sensitive, right? Or to have tantrums when you get overwhelmed or whatever it is. So you kind of take it out on yourself alone. And then people don't even know that you're struggling anymore. And you're like, Well, I guess this is how we deal with it. Yeah, right. sacral press, suppress and redirect and that's not not healing. That's how we have to parent we just have to let our kids be safe and explain to them Like, you know, in the same way, like, oh, you know, you ate all your Halloween candy in 120 minute span when I had my back turn, that's why you threw up? Yeah. You know, or if somebody would say to me like you're worried about stuff all the time, because your reading ability is a little bit higher than your thinking ability. Yeah, right now, you know, other people aren't as worried about this. And maybe they don't need to be as worried as you may be, you need to back off a little bit. Like if somebody had been able to just let me know that the source of some of my struggles came from not, it wasn't that that I was not trying, or it wasn't that I was like, non compliant. It was like I was trying to succeed at something I was not going to, or sometimes my expectations for other people's abilities were out of whack. Right? Because my normal I assumed to be other people's normal to if somebody had been better able to make space for me to be like, Yes, you are incredibly clumsy. But very, very smart. Right? Yeah. Instead of like, I don't know why you can't figure this out. You're so smart. Right? Everybody else can ride a bike. It's like great. Now it's not only can I not ride a bike, but I'm super ashamed about it because I am touched with the smarts therefore, I should be an excellent bike rider. Right?
I'm touched. I'm in touch with the swimming with the swimming prestigious ability, but cannot figure skater do gymnastics or any sort of land activity whatsoever. Yeah,
so now you're not a real athlete. No, no, I wasn't a real athlete. But the one thing that when especially especially
swimming, right, because it was all it was all ballet and gymnastics and and figure skating all very feminine endeavors. Where I was like lumbering around everything. Yeah.
Mm hmm.
Well, I have to go because I've immediately in 10 minutes, but I think this is actually a good place to stop. Anyway,
have Wait, wait, have we gone over on the clock
with them? I mean, do we even have to ask that? And of course, apologies listeners, or maybe not you all seem to still be listening and downloading that I am now too lazy to cut these hour and a half episodes into 245 minute ones because,
yeah, you guys can just listen to it over two weeks on your own. Yeah, yeah, he's gonna record again. So
you know, see if that's right. You know, and whatever you miss, just re listen to it later. But we didn't even introduce ourselves at the beginning. We forgot that's fine. I'm Lee Skallerup Bessette I am known as ready writing on all of the socials. Go ahead,
right I am Amy Morrison. I am touched by the smartness.
But that's how your social media
did you should change it to touch the touch by the smartness. So stupid.
Love it. You can always email us at all the things adhd@gmail.com I will answer you and then relay them to Amy.
You will reveal it to me and I will ponder them while drinking almond beverage.
Almond beverage. All right. So we will see you hear from you talk to you. You know, sometime sometime sometime eventually. Yeah, eventually eventually we'll take a break for the summer but until then, yeah. Until then winter breaks. Yeah. You know, retry. You're not you retrain your body to know that it is not he but also know that it is okay. If it does. It's okay. It's alright. Take care of everyone. How do I stop recording
