[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00:01.54 Jala Hello, world, and welcome to Jalachan's Place. I'm your host, Jala Prendes (she/her), and today, I'm joined by Mike (he/him) and Jack (he/him). Yay! This is all y'all's first time being on the show, so welcome. 00:00:12.17 Michael Prehn Whoa. 00:00:16.69 Jala I'm so excited to have you here. 00:00:18.69 Jack and we are excited to be here. 00:00:21.02 Jala Yeah. 00:00:21.15 Michael Prehn Yeah, great to be here. 00:00:22.96 Jala Yeah, so y'all are gonna be people who are known in the community of folks. 00:00:30.41 Jala You will be Jala-chan's Place Discord server and also Duckfeed server. ah So anybody who listens to The Level or this show and hangs out in the places that the people hang out, we'll know y'all there. But otherwise you don't have anything out on the internet for people to look at. So ah we will circumvent discussing that. How are y'all doing today? 00:00:55.73 Michael Prehn I'm doing all right. ah I got three days until vacation. I'm flying out to Chicago on Friday. So I'm in that wonderful zone where I'm really just not going to do anything at work for the next 72 hours because it's too late to start something new. um So we're just coasting. 00:01:14.94 Jala That is amazing. That's like the best feeling because you can just look at everything on your on your desk at work and go, none of this matters. You can all burn down when I'm gone. 00:01:23.35 Jack Hehehe. 00:01:24.08 Michael Prehn Can't start now. 00:01:27.03 Jala Right, right. And Jack, how about you? 00:01:30.88 Jack I'm knee deep in several projects at work. This summer in Minnesota has been the rainiest summer I can remember in my lifetime. So my poor outside ah plant buddies need some tender loving care and I don't want to go out there in the rain. So I feel a little overwhelmed right now by those things, but happy to be here. This is a good thing to talk about. 00:01:59.63 Jala Well, we've had a lot of rain here and we also had a hurricane. And so like all of my plants, my whole garden is trash. 00:02:03.72 Michael Prehn yeah 00:02:06.19 Jala It is total trash. I feel you on the weird weather stuff, but I'm glad that you're here. And yeah, so as for this show, we are talking today about neurodiversity. This is going to be kind of like a, what is neurodiversity intro 101 kind of thing. And then talking to both of y'all about your own personal experiences. So, um, before i we go into that, I did want to let listeners know that this is the first episode of the rest of this podcast. 00:02:36.93 Jala So what I mean by that is ah I'm doing a little bit of rearranging and ah reconceptualizing of the show, kind of bringing it back to the subtitle of interdisciplinary discussions with friends ah and really kind of opening it up a little bit more. 00:02:37.31 Jack hahaha 00:02:37.43 Michael Prehn So. 00:02:54.42 Jala So Right at this moment, for the past two years, what I've been doing is alternating a media episode and a topical episode. I will still be doing quite a lot of those episodes, but what I'm giving myself to to the ability to do now is I'm giving myself permission to do other stuff if I want to, which is to say, having a discussion about a topic without doing about you know three months at least worth of research on it. and you know talking about like a bunch of board games without having like a fancy header and like doing a bunch of in-depth stuff with that and finding an expert or anything. 00:03:22.31 Michael Prehn Right. 00:03:32.48 Jala you know That kind of a thing where I'm not um always necessarily having like the heavy episodes with all of the the dense content but allowing myself to have some freedom with that and part of the reason for that is because of aforementioned hurricane and other things this year um which have kind of impeded my progress on doing the stuff that i've had no problem doing up until now so rather than 00:03:55.82 Michael Prehn Yeah, I bet. 00:03:57.55 Jala stressing myself out and rather than pausing the show, we're going to swerve. So now we are in the study, which ah each of the episodes going forward is going to be assigned to a place in the Jalachan house. So in the house, we are in the study today and we're going to be talking about some stuff from an academic angle and then kind of moving from there to have some coffee around the kitchen table to talk about experiences after that. So, ah you can find us if you are interested in supporting us on Ko-fi.com slash Jala and kicking us a few bucks to keep the lights on. 00:04:28.89 Jack Thank you. 00:04:35.64 Jala Other than that, I am so done with the preamble. We are ready to move on into the topic, which is again, neurodiversity. So, I've been talking for a minute. Mike, do you want to tell us about neurodiversity? 00:04:51.76 Michael Prehn ah Sure, so first question you might have is what is neurodiversity? um One definition out there from Harvard Medical is neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. ah There is no ah no one right way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and the differences are not viewed as deficits. 00:05:17.54 Jala Right, right. So um I did it. 00:05:19.95 Jack no matter what social media may tell you. 00:05:22.39 Jala Right, right. 00:05:24.12 Jack Not to be that guy, but, well. 00:05:23.40 Michael Prehn No, you're right. 00:05:26.31 Jala Yeah, yeah. Well, and I i neglected to mention at the top, um before we go any further with that, what types of neurodiversity do we have represented today, Mike? 00:05:39.57 Michael Prehn Yeah, so um I am definitely a person with autism, ah kind of recently discovered in my adult life. and ah have some ADHD tendencies as well, although it's a fairly light version of that compared to some of the people I've seen struggling with it. 00:05:58.12 Jala Right. And then, Jack, how about you? 00:06:00.57 Jack ah I was diagnosed with what was then mostly referred to as ADD back when I was 12, 13 years old in 1995. I've been on some form of medication and various coping mechanisms ever since. 00:06:20.46 Jala Awesome. And um I definitely want to hear a whole bunch more about like both of y'all's experiences. We will get there, but first we're going to tell everybody more about neurodiversity in general. So um yeah. I myself ah do not have any notable neurodiverse situation going on that would be like a diagnosis in a clinical setting. I have lots of people who are on the various versions of neurodiverse spectrum ah in my family, including um people who are like directly, you know direct family members. 00:06:59.80 Jala That is a thing that I've been around, but I've been more like a person who loves a person, you know, rather than and a person who has to deal with these things directly. So that is why I have Mike and Jack who are so kind as to come on today to talk about this. So, ah Jack, do you want to tell us about the word neurodiversity? 00:07:20.78 Jack Sure. The word neurodiversity refers to the diversity of all people, but it is often used in the context of autism spectrum disorder, as well as other neurological or developmental conditions such as ADHD or learning disabilities. um The Neurodiversity Movement, which is you know fairly young by psychological standards, emerged during the 1990s and mostly was aiming to increase acceptance and inclusion of all people while embracing neurological differences. 00:07:54.40 Jack through online platforms, more and more autistic people were able to connect and form a self-advocacy movement. And at the same time, Judy Singer, who is an Australian sociologist, coined the term neurodiversity to promote equality and inclusion of, quote, neurological minorities, um which i mean I think is apt. While it's primarily a social justice movement, 00:08:19.76 Jack Neurodiversity research and education is increasingly important and in how clinicians view and address certain disabilities and neurological conditions. 00:08:30.18 Jala Right, right. And so the the thing is ah for us here today is that like we grew up in the pre, hey, neurodiversity exists world before we had words for these things. 00:08:43.45 Jala And so, um you know, like, ah Jack, you having a diagnosis from 1995 is pretty um markedly important because, you know, back in 1995, when I was, you know, around a bunch of different people. And my sister was experiencing um some issues in school with focusing and things like that. um you know We didn't have a word for that. And so it was just considered, oh, well, she's not trying enough. 00:09:13.82 Jala Or she's just whatever. Because her sister is doing like me. i was used ah I was weaponized and used as a Well, um you know she's doing just fine and have a straight A, so what's wrong with you, kid? you know That kind of a thing. So it was unfortunate that I had to see that happen. 00:09:30.15 Jala And my sister later on received some diagnoses in her adulthood, but it's only within the last year or so. So um that's why it's... 00:09:40.03 Jack Yeah, it i in middle school and high school, I was often you know passed over as like, oh, this is just a chronic underachiever sort of situation. um And you know it it took it took a lot to really sort of convince people that you know im I'm not just lazy. Here's the things that I have issues with. We're working on them. What what can we do to accommodate that kind of thing? um And I'll be honest, back then, ah a lot of that was self advocacy, which as a teenager, not great. 00:10:17.33 Jala No. 00:10:17.61 Jack I'll say not great. 00:10:18.38 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:10:19.37 Jala Well, especially when neurodiversity as a thing and these different diagnoses, like they weren't well understood. They were often considered to just be dismissed. like they were They were often dismissed by everybody that I can remember. like My dad, being an old Cuban man, really was dismissive of all of that. He, of course, ended up having a diagnosis in in his older age, but um you know like all of that kind of thing is just It's it really was hard fighting against, say, for example, the boomers and all of the boomers reactions to it, right? ah Even though ah lots of folks were having this as their lived experience. So I want to take a second to say, Mike, so for you, when you were younger, what was it like for you in that in that kind of situation? 00:11:05.96 Michael Prehn I had similar experiences in school, um, some kind of, uh, learning difficulties, uh, bad attention span in class, poor grades. And, you know, at a young age, my teachers could tell that I was fairly gifted, but you know, I was doing so poorly in school. So it was very similar. Like, Oh, he's just not trying. He's lazy. Whatever the case may be. And it varied from teacher to teacher. Some of them were a little bit more hip with what was going on. They took a couple passes at trying to figure out if it was dyslexia or dyscalculia or anything like that. um And really it just kind of boiled down to like the public education system doesn't really do a good job of adjusting to the student because it's a turn and burn kind of situation. 00:11:55.79 Michael Prehn So the traditional teaching methods that they use are not always going to click with someone who's neurodivergent. And I think that that was where I experienced some of that friction. 00:12:08.81 Jala Right. Right. And that's something where, you know, my sister was also considered to be highly gifted. She's super talented with art and she can do all of these different things and, you you know, but she just can't focus on anything. She can't, she can't, you know, stick to a task to ever finish anything. She only just starts projects and then that's the end of it. And you know There's something wrong with her. 00:12:27.92 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 00:12:29.43 Jala There's something wrong with her. you know um And that's partially because, again, ah immigrant father you know doesn't believe and in things for a long time. ah But then also we just didn't have money. We lived in a less less good situation, especially back then. We've never had it great. But um you know we we lived in a rougher situation and we didn't have any kind of health coverage to um facilitate going somewhere, but also health insurance at that time didn't really cover a lot of that kind of stuff, the psychological stuff. 00:13:02.47 Jala so yeah, um moving right along with the notes though, some examples of neuro-distinct types include ADHD, autism, dyslexia, which affects reading, dyspraxia, which affects coordination, dyscalculia, which affects numbers interpretation, dysgraphia, which affects writing, and Tourette syndrome. So folks have probably heard of at least a good chunk of these. And these are all fall under the neurodiverse umbrella. So neurodiversity is a state of nature to be respected, an analytical tool for examining social issues, an argument for the conversation or conservation and facilitation of human diversity. 00:13:44.77 Jala And that's from Judy Singer in 2020. Judy Singer being the person who really was advocating. She was the Australian sociologist that was advocating for folks and co coined that term neurodiversity originally. 00:14:00.21 Jala So I know from my own experiences that discussing different topics and talking about like experiences of life with various individuals on this show and in the server, it's been really enriching for me to be able to see so many different perspectives and different ways of processing things that everyone has. So ah there is some major benefit to really taking the time to have quality conversations with other people to understand you know, how they process things and how they see the world. So. 00:14:33.40 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:14:34.26 Jack I definitely, definitely agree. 00:14:36.92 Jala So, Jack, how about talking about language usage as it applies to neurodiversity? 00:14:44.99 Jack So in the previous Jala-chan's Place episode about ah disabilities, um you mentioned the differences between person-first language and identity-first language. ah Most disability advocacy organizations prefer person-first language. ah In other words, a person with autism. But research has shown that the majority of the neurodiverse community prefers ah identity-first language, like an autistic person. um It's important to ask rather than assume. um I mean, I think that's generally the case. 00:15:21.19 Jala Right, right. And Mike, when you first introduced yourself, you said you were a person with autism. So I suppose you've already ah answered the question of what do you prefer? 00:15:31.44 Michael Prehn Sure. Yeah. So I'm definitely a person that goes with the person first language for me. I recognize I'm kind of in the minority on that because a lot of the other people who have autism prefer to ah use the IFL kind of model. That's just my personal preference for me. Like Jack said, asking is always super valuable for a lot of different things, really. And um my preference for the person first language is because, you know, autism isn't like the only flavor of neurodivergence I have. 00:16:06.81 Michael Prehn ah So it feels a little bit too singular to refer to me as an autistic person. 00:16:12.33 Jala Right. Right. 00:16:12.44 Michael Prehn You know, people might disagree, but that's just for me. 00:16:13.23 Jala Right. 00:16:16.01 Jala And that's awesome. And it makes sense and sounds good to me. And Jack, how about you? 00:16:22.26 Jack Um, I'll be honest, I have struggled with whether to identify with ADHD at all, um let alone officially in language. 00:16:37.49 Jack um I think a lot of that came from sort of the stigma that kind of immediately metastasized in society in the mid-90s when I was diagnosed. Like, I mean, within a year, I was seeing, you know, like, Newsweek cover stories. Is everybody taking Ritalin? Oh, man, is this fake? um stuff like that. And I've never I've never really seen my ADHD as something other than kind of an extra responsibility to deal with. 00:17:11.00 Jack And you know that's a personal that's a personal thing for me. 00:17:11.26 Jala Right. 00:17:15.48 Jack And I know that that's not necessarily a healthy way to view it. um But in terms of like official language, I you know, if if someone asks me if I have ADHD, I will be honest about it. But I generally try not to outwardly, you know, proclaim it if it's not necessary or asked about, um you know, so. 00:17:38.73 Jala Right. Because it's kind of like, for example, I live in Texas. I'm vegan. For me to say, I'm vegan, everybody is like, you know, a big giant flag that'll make people feel weird and uncomfortable because I don't want to eat animals. 00:17:46.36 Michael Prehn thank yeah 00:17:55.31 Jala And they will get so weird about it and so uncomfortable about it. 00:17:57.45 Michael Prehn Thanks. 00:17:59.11 Jala And then treat me like I have a third head. I mean, there was a lady. OK, so at my birthday celebration, Dave took me to a though though one of my favorite places, a a winery that I've been going to since I was 21. So half of my life now. And we went there, we had a tour with the owners and we had this three course meal. And then this lady who was next to me was happily chatting with me, this little old lady, until we got the meal. And then instead of the gigantic Flintstones short rib that they got, ah I was allegedly short rib, by the way. I mean, this thing was so huge. It was like the size, but way side bigger than the size of the plate, even. 00:18:37.42 Jala um and the bone. Oh, good Lord. But anyway, um so then and she's looking at my plate and going, hmm, that's not what I'm eating. It's so good that they can accommodate your, your dietary preferences, you know, and then like didn't really want to talk to me anymore after that. 00:18:54.51 Jack Ugh. 00:18:54.54 Jala So um you know like it's not the same it's not apples to apples but um there are certain words that trigger people real bad so um i can understand not wanting to assign a label to yourself when you don't feel that this is like the be all end all of who you are now like if it comes to a medical setting and you're talking to someone about your situation or if i'm talking to 00:18:54.66 Michael Prehn Haha. 00:19:18.02 Jala my doctor or if I'm discussing with a dietician or something, you know like then yes, I would be like, yes, I'm vegan. But you know out in society, you don't want that to be the one thing that people see when they look at you and you know that's fair. 00:19:32.08 Michael Prehn Yeah, sometimes it can be more trouble than it's worth. 00:19:32.62 Jack Mhmm. 00:19:35.36 Jala ye Yep. Mike, tell us about autism spectrum disorder. 00:19:41.20 Jack Please. 00:19:42.35 Michael Prehn Sure, so this is a line from Autism Speaks. ah though They say autism or autism spectrum disorder refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behavior, speech, and nonverbal communication. According to the Centers for Disease Control, autism affects an estimated 1 in 36 children and 1 in 45 adults in the United States today. 00:20:09.80 Jala Yeah. And these figures I have to and you know state are just what's reported. That doesn't include all of the undiagnosed individuals. Now, in addition to limits like and not having the money to go to the doctor and things like that, you also have cultural situations. 00:20:21.22 Jack you 00:20:26.10 Jala Say, for example, um people who are from another country, if they are from like um somewhere in Asia, for example, a lot of Asian families have a tendency of disregarding that this kind of ah diagnosis. And Black families, often Black people who deal with these situations, often are undiagnosed because either the medical society is ah racist against them, or because ah there's there's multiple reasons. There's that. There's also the fact that culturally their their own family and everything just think that that you know they just need to man up or whatever and and get over it um and just push their way through. um But then also 00:21:10.98 Jala There's the fact that all of the studies on autism were done on white males. So if you're female ah or if you are a person of color, the way that autism shows itself in you may not 00:21:18.61 Jack No. 00:21:26.22 Jala Track with the official diagnosis. So then you just aren't diagnosed even if you go to get a diagnosis So um that's something to take into consideration as well. So yeah um Continuing on the form autism takes is different from person to person i I already kind of mentioned like it manifests differently in different cultures and everything and that's a scientific facts stuff I studied about but um Also, different people individually, like if you have two white males, it's not going to look the same between the two white males as to how it manifests in them. So ah some people have a more divergent type of wiring than others. Some people can live independently and function in society, pretty much the same as a neurotypical person via masking. 00:22:13.75 Jala Others have considerably more ah challenging of a time and may end up being disabled by their neurotype. If they are, for example, nonverbal, they're going to have a very difficult time in society ah trying to go about their day-to-day life. So um there's also commonly other co-occurrences along with autism, such as ADHD, which is often confused for anxiety and depression, gastrointestinal disorders, seizures, and sleep disorders. 00:22:43.96 Michael Prehn Jack, you ever bingo card out for that one? Because I think I pretty much just blacked out the whole dang thing, except for the seizures, thankfully. 00:22:49.21 Jack ah Yes. it and yeah ah and then Honestly, the number of times i i mean that in my early 20s I was asked if I was autistic is i mean it's offensive the first time, but then I kind of got used to it. 00:23:08.79 Jack um i you know i don't I don't know what the co-occurring symptoms necessarily are because I'm a somewhat less educated on kind of the details then than I think other people are. 00:23:17.87 Michael Prehn Okay. 00:23:25.24 Jack But you know that that was kind of my first exposure to what autism was, if I'm being honest, is people asking me. 00:23:33.33 Jala Yeah, yeah. 00:23:33.89 Michael Prehn um 00:23:35.83 Jala So, and it's funny because for me, uh, I didn't quote unquote, know anybody autistic because I didn't know anybody who had a diagnosis that was talking about it. Right. But then later on in life, I would find out that this person or this person is, or was, or whatever autistic. And then I'm like, Oh, huh. I didn't know that. So, you know, um, for me, it was kind of, uh, by surprise also in a, in a different way. So. 00:24:04.72 Michael Prehn Yeah, because there's that stigma attached to it like you're talking about comparing it with being vegan in Texas. ah You know, a lot of people don't really put it out there on Front Street because they are worried they're going to be seen in a negative light from others. 00:24:17.65 Jack Mm hmm. 00:24:17.87 Jala Right. Or something that I know is often very, very common for people with some kind of ah diagnosis, especially is, oh, well, you are X, then that explains why. 00:24:30.06 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 00:24:30.38 Jala And, and using that as a way to explain something about how you are or how you act and just chalking it up to a diagnosis rather than, you know, just you being the person that you are. 00:24:31.10 Michael Prehn yeah 00:24:44.29 Jack Yeah, this the symptoms become your identity to some people sometimes. 00:24:48.87 Jala Right. 00:24:49.54 Michael Prehn Yeah, which never feels good. 00:24:49.73 Jala Right. Right. So Mike, how was it when you first heard the term autism? 00:24:57.01 Michael Prehn You know, I heard it fairly young and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but, uh, both of my parents are psychologists. And, uh, so they you know would talk very openly about it, but it felt like something more abstract that wasn't happening to me or any, um, anyone in my family that I knew of at the time. Uh, and it was only kind of whenever I got to be a little bit more online and on Twitter. seeing people talking about this and then going, Oh, well I have a lot of that stuff going on. Maybe I need to look into this and I, it just kind of clicked, uh, together for me and I didn't feel bad about it or anything. It just seemed like I know all these wonderful people who do have autism. It didn't seem like a bad thing to me. It's just, you're built a little bit different as they say. So I was okay with putting that, uh, identity on. 00:25:51.53 Jala Right, right. And um again, like just thinking about all the folks that are in the server and how we talk so openly with each other about stuff. And sometimes there's communication issues just because different people perceive things differently and and and ah process things differently and and maybe take different stuff out of words than other people do. So you know it's kind of like a constant learning process, being close to people and being open and frank with them and and having these kinds of discussions. so Yeah. 00:26:21.67 Michael Prehn yeah 00:26:23.12 Jala Jack, tell us about the gender gap. 00:26:25.80 Jack So there's there's also a gender gap involved in the rate of diagnosis. Males are four times more likely to be diagnosed than females. That's a lot. 00:26:34.32 Jala yes 00:26:34.99 Jack It's because of several factors, including, Jala, as you mentioned, the original basis of diagnosis was white males. Females tend to mask more, and clinicians tend to disregard female patient's input more frequently, which, I mean, you know, i 00:26:49.85 Jala and here 00:26:53.46 Jack i'm I'm not someone who has done these studies, but just offhand seeing that females tend to mask more, you know, the overlap between that and, oh, you know, the patriarchy. i o it It seems pretty apparent to me. 00:27:06.86 Jala Yeah. 00:27:07.66 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:27:09.74 Jala Right, right. Absolutely. And that's the thing, too, is that culturally ah in society until more recent times and even still today, ah there are a lot of women who they are raised to be meek and servile and things like that. They are told that they need to be quiet and polite, very polite, and they always must be engaged and they must be so pretty in the whole Barbie speech. I'm not going to go into it. um But you get the idea. like you know They have to be on at all times, firing it on all cylinders and be able to do like everything. 00:27:42.66 Jala um But they also have to be nice about it and have a smile. So um that forces people who may not automatically do that into a really hard situation where they have to learn how to mask or they they will flounder in society. 00:27:50.49 Jack Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. 00:27:58.31 Jala so So yeah, female autism, and it varies from how a typical male manifestation is ah portrayed. And of course, ah to date, there aren't really any studies on things like, you know, oh, the the black or the Hispanic or the whatever Asian or whatever different manifestations to see how it differs in different cultures. So again, we're kind of operating off of the United States version of this. So um from psychology today, autistic females are less likely to show the same repetitive behaviors, restricted interests, and social withdrawal seen in autistic males. These same traits can be present but may look different in autistic females compared to males. Instead of classic repetitive movements and patterns in place such as rocking, flapping their hands in fascination with parts of toys, females may twirl or pull their hair, pick their skin, skip, 00:28:54.86 Jala or gallop. They might be perfectionistic. They might have a need for sameness, routine, and inflexibility with change. Autistic females may have restricted interests, such as an intense interest in a specific topic, you know, their special interest, ah collections of something specific or a favorite movie or show or character, but they often are socially accepted and similar as similar to neurotypical females. So ah their their interests are more likely to be characters or animals rather than objects. And because of that, it doesn't get it isn't perceived as anything more than like fangirling, for example. 00:29:36.89 Jack Heh. 00:29:37.68 Jala you know, or, oh my gosh, Squee, this is such a cute animal. No, you don't understand actually, you know, the depths of my affection for this animal, you know, or whatever. um For example, they may obsess about the movie Frozen or all of the Disney princesses, but to a repetitive degree that is more intense than a neurotypical female. So they may watch the movies hundreds of times, repeat the movie scenes in their play exactly, and collect everything to do with that movie or character. They may believe these characters are real. So um just going off of all this, it's like, you know, if you think about our society and how ladies are raised, you know, or assigned female at birth individuals are raised, at least, um you know, there's a lot of stuff where it's like, 00:30:22.76 Jala A lot of this sounds like, you know, just as they say, um more like a more intense version of what's already accepted as the way that, um you know, a assigned female birth at birth individuals are integrated into society. I mean, you know, like, it it just it it wouldn't raise a flag in anybody's mind, I don't think at to the same degree, except for the fact that it's a really intense um focus that they've got. 00:30:41.27 Jack Mmhmm. 00:30:53.58 Michael Prehn Yeah, it almost feels akin to the whole masking being a product of culture and upbringing as much as being an autistic individual. There is a lot of overlap in that kind of behavior and what people would consider normal for a young lady. So it probably doesn't stick out quite as much. I know I have a couple of nieces that are very big into frozen right now and ah hundreds of times it's not an exaggeration. 00:31:16.92 Jack Hm. 00:31:20.36 Michael Prehn I can tell you that much. 00:31:20.55 Jala Mm hmm. Right, right. So how about you lead us in and talk about social motivations and friendships? 00:31:30.15 Michael Prehn ah So autistic females are more likely to demonstrate social motivation and to develop friendship than autistic males who tend to isolate themselves, especially at young ages. ah They may have one friend at a time, sometimes for years, or they may have one friend for a year and then change with each new school year. They might even struggle to share friends and become overly possessive as if their friends belong to them. They want to make friends but have difficulty connecting with other people their age. 00:32:04.63 Jala Right. And it's it's wild because I'm like, you know, like I know so many assigned female at birth individuals that I grew up around and went to school with that this applied to. And so that's why it's like every time I i look through the list of indications, right? I'm like, okay, well, it is harder because it is harder to spot this in assigned female at birth individuals because, um you know, like a lot of this is is So common, actually. 00:32:37.43 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 00:32:37.89 Jala I mean, like, maybe, again, not the degree to which, but a lot of the behaviors and tendencies are still fall in line with that kind of um accepted, you know, ah status quo. 00:32:37.99 Jack Yes. 00:32:50.35 Jala So Jack, tell us about ah understanding and interpreting behaviors and emotions. 00:32:57.15 Jack Sure. Autistic females are more likely than autistic males to be able to understand and interpret the behavior and emotions emotions of others so they can imitate, but they often don't see the impact of their own behavior on those interactions. Their struggle with insight often leads to social mistakes and rejection, and they may have no idea what they did wrong. 00:33:21.59 Jala Right. And it's, it's, I, I've definitely seen this happen, uh, to people that I know in the past, and I don't know if they ever ended up being autistic or if it was just, you know, something else, but, um, it's always crushing when I always saw this happen because it's honestly, they don't know. They don't know, you know? Have you ever had a situation like that, Mike, where, you know, cause you seem pretty well in tune and like able to discern and like read folks pretty well. 00:33:53.67 Michael Prehn Yeah. I mean, I have definitely seen a lot of people who, um, are dealing with kind of the symptoms of autism and may not even realize it themselves. Uh, it's, you know, it's a pandemic in America. People are under diagnosed for a wide variety of things because healthcare care is expensive or, uh, they might have like a head in the sand kind of thing going on where they figure that, If they don't want to deal with that stigma, one way they can avoid it is just not looking into it. 00:34:25.17 Michael Prehn Like, I'm not going to open that box because I'm not going to like what's in it kind of thing. 00:34:29.36 Jala Right. 00:34:29.90 Michael Prehn um There are a lot of people that I work with that I heavily suspect um probably have autism and they're just intentionally not getting it diagnosed because they feel like people are going to view them in a negative light because of that. 00:34:44.71 Jala Right and there is a whole debate. I read one book that was um by an autistic person for autistic people and it was saying in there like they had like a whole chapter or more than that even that was devoted to should you or should you not get a diagnosis here's the impact that it will have if you do and versus if you do not and like what are the the drawbacks the pros and cons so you know like In order to be a valid person with a valid experience, you do not need to have a diagnosis under your under your um you know list of things checked off on your medical stuff. 00:35:12.74 Michael Prehn right 00:35:25.13 Jala so ah Definitely folks should keep that in mind. but 00:35:30.27 Michael Prehn Yeah, I agree. It doesn't make their experience any less valid. And I certainly can understand not, uh, not wanting to have that label on you and such. 00:35:33.69 Jack No. 00:35:38.98 Michael Prehn I mean, I'm as guilty out of it as anybody. I don't talk about having autism at work because like Jack said earlier in the podcast, I have some concerns that some of my coworkers that don't like me very much are going to be like, Oh, well, that's why he's weird is because of this or whatever. Uh, when in reality, it's just, it's the kind of guy I am, you know? 00:35:58.83 Jala Right, right, absolutely. So ah just to wrap up the stuff about autistic females, they are often so afraid of someone being upset with them, disappointed in them, or hurting other people's feelings that they become people pleasers, trying to figure out what other people want from them so they will be liked. 00:36:05.62 Michael Prehn Right. 00:36:16.67 Jala Unfortunately, this often later leads to autistic females being taken advantage of or being abused in relationships more frequently than neurotypical females. And that is a real shame. And definitely I have seen that happen. so 00:36:30.53 Jack Same. 00:36:30.94 Michael Prehn yeah 00:36:32.10 Jala Right, so um we already talked a little bit about minorities. They are less likely to have a formal diagnosis, but they're also, and I didn't mention this earlier, more likely to have autism than Caucasians. 00:36:40.77 Jack Hmm. 00:36:45.52 Jala Various factors are at play for this, much like with females. so Doctors not listening to them, ah having less disposable income to see a doctor in the first place, mistrust of doctors due to long history of maltreatment. The list goes on and on. But a recent study by the CDC found that black Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander populations are more likely to have autism than white children. Each of those is at or a little bit above 30% to white children, which are at about 24%. So they have like a market increase in the number of people. 00:37:19.47 Jala That's one in three. One in three have autism versus one in four-ish for white folks. 00:37:22.10 Michael Prehn hu 00:37:26.91 Jack good 00:37:27.47 Jala So 00:37:27.87 Michael Prehn And I'm at least two of those things, so I guess it kind of explains why I'm here. 00:37:29.57 Jala Right? 00:37:33.27 Jala Right, right. So ah yeah, there have been no studies that I'm aware of ah that have tried to look at ASD and how that differs in these minority populations. So um insofar as treatments are concerned, Jack, you want to tell us a little bit about what what can be done? 00:37:51.09 Jack Mm hmm. Sure. The most effective interventions available for children are behavioral therapies that are based on applied behavioral analysis or ABA, um meaning the person works one on one with a therapist. ah Other therapeutic options to try include occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, and of course, pharmacological therapy. and um The most effective treatments for adults include psychotherapy and counseling, ah CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy, social skills training and occupational therapy. 00:38:29.90 Jala Right, and I hate ah hate the word treatment here because that implies disease, right? 00:38:36.54 Jack Yes. 00:38:36.83 Jala I don't like that word. 00:38:37.15 Michael Prehn Right now. 00:38:38.40 Jala ah That is the word that was out there when I was doing the study, but I definitely wanted to point out I don't like that word used for this um because It's not, it's just you're wired differently and you have to learn how to function in a society where you are the minority that is wired that way. And you have to deal with a majority that is wired a different way that you have to play to their rules, which is really what it is. 00:39:03.15 Jala So. 00:39:03.44 Michael Prehn Yeah, absolutely. 00:39:05.15 Jala So, yeah, ah it's pretty rough. It's pretty rough. um i I think that a lot of people don't understand and think about neurodiversity that way, unless they are neurodiverse themselves. I think that the the the majority folks, OK, let's say it that way, the majority folks 00:39:20.72 Jack Mmhmm. 00:39:22.35 Jala don't think about it like that. They think about it as it is a disease and that's why that word ah treatment shows up when I'm doing these studies unless it's something from an autistic person themselves or from somebody who is on the neurodiverse spectrum somewhere in there because they're the only people who aren't thinking about it that way because it's their lived experience and it's it's just, you know they're wired differently. 00:39:37.76 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:39:44.48 Jala That's all it is. it We're not the same. 00:39:46.24 Michael Prehn Yeah. And and I, ah yeah, absolutely. 00:39:47.65 Jala That's the beauty. 00:39:50.52 Michael Prehn And I think that, you know. Again, it's technically the correct term, but I think probably not accurate. Like you're saying, you know, treatment implies that there's an end of treatment. Like there's a thing you can do to not have this anymore. 00:40:00.17 Jala Right. 00:40:04.20 Michael Prehn And that's just not how neurodiversity works because it's your brain chemistry. 00:40:07.31 Jack okay Right. 00:40:08.97 Michael Prehn Like it is who you are. So not only does it not need to be treated, but there really isn't anything that you can do about it, generally speaking, other than you know some of these therapies that might help with deal with the undesirable elements of ah to you of neurodiversity, because it can be a challenge for a lot of people. 00:40:11.48 Jala Right. 00:40:31.53 Michael Prehn And so you're really just trying to figure out how to deal with your own BS, so to speak. 00:40:38.00 Jala Right. So something that I've been thinking about a lot with respects to this in particular is the kind of overlap with the concept that a lot of disabled folks in the disabled community have about their situation, which is that disabled folks are not disabled because they have a problem inherent in and of themselves. It is because society does not give them the tools to thrive and does not allow them to be the way that they are. And I'm going to say that again for disabled people and people who are neurodiverse and anybody else who's a minority in some way, shape or form. 00:41:13.91 Jala The reason why they have a problem isn't because they are a problem. It is because society does not let them live and breathe and be who they are and give them the tools they need to succeed. And that's it. 00:41:25.03 Michael Prehn Yeah, the call is very specifically coming from outside the house in this case. 00:41:30.17 Jala Right. Right, right. So ah moving right along, Jack, do you want to tell us about ADHD? 00:41:38.89 Jack Oh, I would. um Just one more thing about about the the treatment talk that we were having. 00:41:40.74 Michael Prehn Hehehe. 00:41:44.33 Jala Yes. 00:41:45.37 Jack It's you know the technically the right word, of course, but you know as as Michael mentioned, that that that implies an ending that doesn't exist. when i When I arrange my bathroom in such a way that I make sure that I am doing the daily things that I need to do to maintain hygiene, take all my pills, all that stuff. That is treatment to me and and using that word is just kind of a little funny just to my mind. 00:42:13.20 Jala Mm hmm. Right. 00:42:15.29 Jack um But ah more broadly about ADHD, psychiatry dot.org definition, ah Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as it is known today, is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. Symptoms of ADHD include inattention, or not being able to keep focus, hyperactivity, excess movement that is not fitting to the setting, and impulsivity, a hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought. ADHD is considered a chronic and debilitating disorder and is known to impact the individual in many aspects of their life, 00:42:53.53 Jack including academic and professional achievements, interpersonal relationships, and daily functioning. ADHD can lead to poor self-esteem and social function in children when not appropriately treated. Adults with ADHD may experience poor self-worth, sensitivity towards criticism, oh boy, increased self-criticism, possibly stemming from higher levels of criticism throughout life. um Of note, ADHD presentation and assessment in adults does differ from children. 00:43:23.33 Jala Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So Jack, you had an oh boy in there. 00:43:29.07 Jack i Yeah, a sensitivity towards criticism and increased self-criticism is kind of my, I don't know, mantra through most days, I guess. 00:43:40.39 Jala Mm-hmm. 00:43:40.54 Jack ah 00:43:41.37 Michael Prehn My bad. 00:43:42.04 Jack um You know, the the way that ADHD kind of colors the relationships that I have um from my family on outward is apparent to me ah more every day. um As someone who was diagnosed with this as a kid, aye my parents at first kind of refused to acknowledge that diagnosis. um You know, we did all of the things that the psychologists and the psychiatrists recommended. And I was on Ritalin pretty much immediately. But um 00:44:22.12 Jack just kind of the way that that this sort of was what the effects were was sort of hidden from me as a kid. And then, you know, as a person who had trouble keeping jobs in in his 20s, you know, and thus didn't have the money to seek medication or have this treated. i You know, that kind of rolling rock effect of you know higher levels of criticism throughout my life you know has kind of led to who I am today. ah you know i'm Whenever I'm criticized, I'm extremely defensive. um i My self-worth varies from day to day, but it's it's a struggle. um and And that sort of 00:45:11.19 Jack that sort of like effect on your psychology in kind of all the knock on ways that these that these symptoms kind of manifest and affect the way that you do at school at work um with significant others in the dating pool all of that I i think you know is something that I 00:45:32.19 Jala Mm hmm. 00:45:32.95 Jack you know, I was never aware of ah growing up or as a young adult, you know, when I kind of re sought help about this, i I sort of opened up to, okay, this isn't just I'm drumming on a desk, you know, and people are annoyed, which is the way that I had always thought that a DD ADHD was kind of characterized by the people around me. 00:45:34.52 Jala Mm hmm. 00:45:57.04 Jack It was like, this is annoying, shut up. um But you know, as I as I matured and kind of learned about this, you know, the, the ways that it impacts your your brain psychology, because of all of the, you know, socio cultural things you go through as an individual are, you know, innumerable, it's, it it's, it's a lot. 00:46:22.20 Jala Right, right. And, oh, no, no, no. 00:46:23.24 Jack and Sorry, sorry to go, go off. there 00:46:25.66 Jala I was definitely going to just say too that um your experiences, the way that other people responded to, you know, you being as you are and, you know, giving you a hard time about it to where you become more and more sensitive, that is a trauma response is what that is. And, um you know, like I very recently had my own trauma response, which I still haven't gotten fully recovered from. 00:46:47.28 Jack Yes. 00:46:52.37 Jack Mm-hmm. 00:46:53.88 Jala So, ah you know, and that unpacked, I was like, oh, um this is a thing that I didn't realize was deeply impacting me. That is a thing that happened because of all of this stuff over time. And there will be, for listeners, there will be a trauma response episode in the future. You can look forward to that. But some yeah, and and that when you said, um oh, well, that's annoying, shut up. ah That's something that I hear a lot from a lot of neurodiverse people as something that they heard a lot. And um that was something that was so hurtful to them that you know they carry that with them even now and they are hypersensitive about it because they have a whole past of being stabbed in the exact same place over and over again. Of course, you're going to have a sensitivity in that spot, right? 00:47:43.73 Jack Yeah, i I, for one, you know, I know other people are, I don't know if stronger is the right word, but I know that other people are more apt to form metaphorical calluses around that kind of thing. But not me. Not me really. 00:47:58.66 Jala ah Right. And it's it's it's hard. And everybody kind of responds to stuff differently and and tries to process things differently. So yeah. ah for For listeners though, definitely. like If you have any any urge in your soul to tell somebody that's annoying, shut up. Maybe think twice about it before you say it ah because you you have no idea what you may or may not ah be causing with that. 00:48:17.99 Michael Prehn Hm. 00:48:22.24 Jala you know Maybe maybe ah rephrase that in some kind of tactful way and or redirect that energy or something. You know, so um moving along with ADHD, Mike, do you want to tell us about the three types? 00:48:37.09 Michael Prehn Yeah, so the three types of ADHD are inattentive, ah hyperactive or impulsive, and combined, which is the best of both worlds. ah Inattentive ah type ADHD. 00:48:47.51 Jack sure 00:48:51.87 Michael Prehn typically means that a person possesses a five or six of the following traits. They don't pay close attention to details or make careless mistakes in school or job tasks. ah They have problems staying focused on tasks or activities, such as during lectures, conversations, or long reading. 00:49:09.81 Jack Thank you 00:49:10.82 Michael Prehn um They seem to be somewhere else, quote unquote, when they're being spoken to. 00:49:16.74 Michael Prehn or they have difficulty following through instructions and don't complete their schoolwork or job duties fully. ah They start tasks quickly, but they lose focus on them just as quickly. ah They may have problems organizing tasks and work. ah For example, they might suffer from poor time management, have messy or disorganized work, missed deadlines, things of that nature. ah They avoid or dislike tasks that require sustained mental efforts, such as preparing reports and completing forms. um They might often lose things that they need for tasks or daily life, such as school papers, books, keys, wallet, cell phone, that kind of thing. 00:49:59.65 Michael Prehn Uh, they're easily distracted, which is kind of the hallmark feature of this. And then, uh, they may forget daily tasks such as doing chores, running errands. Um, older teens and adults may forget to return phone calls, pay bills, or keep appointments, things of that nature. 00:50:16.81 Jala Right. 00:50:17.40 Michael Prehn So if you have five to six of those qualities, uh, you might have the inattentive style ADHD. 00:50:24.37 Jala and I will tell you right now, one of the people that I work with in my three-person pod is one of those and is not treated. 00:50:31.54 Michael Prehn I believe. 00:50:32.62 Jala It does not have medication, let me let me rather say. so um you know ah This has caused numerous issues that I have had to try to fix. 00:50:36.35 Michael Prehn yep 00:50:41.30 Jala So ah we just do what we can with that. i I am currently and I have been in the duration of the time this person has been working with me. I have been trying different things to see if I might find a way to help them better absorb or better you know adjust their workflow. To the date, I have not found the secret, but I am trying. 00:51:04.88 Michael Prehn Yeah. 00:51:06.73 Jack as somebody who went unmedicated for a number of years, um and luckily managed to hold down a job. A, ah collective, I'm sorry, Jala, and B, um ah you know, I've, I never found the silver bullet, the, you know, just so to speak, in terms of how you know, this planner, oh my God, I can do it for three days and then it's gone. 00:51:34.57 Jala oh yeah no 00:51:36.75 Jack You know, standard work that's written out by, you know, a supervisor or that I work on myself alongside somebody else. 00:51:36.83 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 00:51:44.09 Jack No, that doesn't work. 00:51:46.41 Jack um You know, the this the seriousness of how your efficacy at a job vis-a-vis the capitalist hellscape that we live in, um or or not, 00:51:56.74 Jala Oh 00:52:00.36 Jack ah 00:52:00.58 Jala yeah, no. 00:52:01.87 Jack Is is just so it the daily impact that I can see even even now that I'm medicated again is just who the You know, I I know that that I've been a problem child so to speak in in in workplaces because of these things. 00:52:21.79 Jala right and that's got a way on you when you know the like I don't know if anyone at this time anywhere has figured out the, like, cause especially since everybody has their own kind of manifestations of it and there might be like commonalities, but each individual person is going to have a little bit different recipe, if you will. 00:52:42.08 Jala I don't know if anybody's figured out, like what's a good way to get um people who are ADHD or something um to have like, what's their ideal functioning situation for them? And you know, like that's, that's a difficult kind of thing. 00:52:53.25 Jack Mm hmm. 00:52:56.53 Jala um just from my time again with my own community and being more cognizant of the various ways that so many different people have, ah you know, processing and whatever and and learning capacities and things, um that has made it to where I am doing my best for this other person that I work with to hopefully help, you know, or at least cover their butt. when something goes wrong and I have to stay over to fix something that was busted um you know because of ah a kind of brain fart, if you will. so um you know i'm I'm doing my best as as can be done um to to help with that, but i I don't know. I think I would have probably just been irritated before if I hadn't 00:53:42.37 Jala you know been been around ah like enough people that are neurodiverse to have more, like have developed patience and have like ah an affection and a love for people as they are. you know like that that's I guess what I'm trying to say is like i've I've done a lot of maturing in the last bit. i still have ever Everybody's got stuff they got to work on. There's a lot of stuff I still have to work on. but 00:54:04.74 Jack Mmhmm. 00:54:04.84 Jala um I definitely feel like I'm doing better now than I have in you know my storied history of 42 years on this earth. um so ah There have been times where I just don't understand like i don't understand why you can't you know do this thing. and It's just because my brain is wired differently. and I never had those conversations with those people. I would say, I don't understand why this doesn't work. and Then they're like, I don't know, it just doesn't work. and Then that was the end of it. But having these more in-depth conversations with lots of different folks in my adulthood has really been nothing but a benefit. 00:54:42.36 Jack Yeah, talking talking these things out is is consistently helpful if you're able to have those frank conversations with people. 00:54:50.71 Jala Absolutely. Mike, you you haven't talked in a minute. Do you have anything else to add on that before we move on? 00:54:58.36 Michael Prehn Yeah, I mean, you know, one good on you for at least sh trying because that requires an empathy that not everyone is willing or capable of of doing. 00:55:06.29 Jack For real. 00:55:07.48 Michael Prehn We all got to work together with all of our difficulties, right? 00:55:10.23 Jala Mm hmm. 00:55:10.89 Michael Prehn And, you know, from the flip side of things, the person that is neurodivergent, a lot of time they may have a hard time communicating, uh, what what these challenges are because um I mean if you're a fish and you live in the sea it's kind of hard to explain what it's like to a land mammal you know what I mean like that's something they've been dealing with their entire lives it's just the default mode so it's kind of hard to put into words what it's like because this is just how you are 00:55:30.84 Jala Right. 00:55:42.99 Jala Well, there's that for sure, but there's also the, and this is again, this isn't more overlap with say disabled community or even you know people of color you know minority kind of situation to any other minority situation. Let us just broaden that umbrella. um that there is a sense of entitlement from the ah majority where they expect and you know require that you explain yourself for whatever deviations you may have, whatever those may be. 00:56:15.13 Jala And, uh, that puts a lot of onus and pressure on you and makes you feel like there's something wrong with you when it's not like you're just, you're being a person in the world, a beautiful person who is, you know, yet another, you know, different part of the rainbow of humanity, you know, that kind of thing. 00:56:29.18 Jack Right. 00:56:29.71 Michael Prehn Yeah, the expectation is that you have to meet them on their side of the street. 00:56:33.25 Jala Yeah. 00:56:33.44 Jack like 00:56:33.52 Michael Prehn They're not, we're not going to meet in the middle. 00:56:35.49 Jala Precisely. So. Although you're like, come to my side and then get hit by that car. 00:56:41.82 Michael Prehn that 00:56:42.22 Jala but ha ha ah Anyway. All right. ah 00:56:47.06 Michael Prehn No talking. It's dangerous. 00:56:48.60 Jala Right. Right. So a hyperactive or impulsive testing, impossible diagnosis follows possession of five or six of the following fidgets or with, or taps hands or feet, squirms in seat, ah not able to stay seated in a classroom or a workplace running around and climbing where it's inappropriate. um I would love to, you know, I do that as an adult, like I absolutely have just run around and climbed on stuff and I'm not trying to ah assign myself a thing. but i definitely do that as an adult 00:57:20.18 Jala anyway um 00:57:20.59 Michael Prehn Well sometimes running around and climbing is fun though. 00:57:22.97 Jala It absolutely is. It's great. So ah unable to play or do leisure activities quietly, always on the go as if driven by a motor, talking too much, ah blurting out an answer before the question is even finished. So anticipating the question or finishing people's sentences, they can't wait for the person to finish speaking in conversations. They're already bored before the conversation's even gotten to the point. um And i'll I'll tell you, like i I definitely do that too. Anyway, um has difficulty waiting for his or her turns, such as while waiting in line, interrupts or intrudes on others. 00:58:00.44 Jala For example, cutting into conversations, games, or activities, or starting using other people's things without permission. Older teens and adults may take over what others are doing. Oh my God, yeah. um so So full disclosure, my sister has as ah an ADHD diagnosis. 00:58:13.06 Michael Prehn Thank 00:58:13.67 Jack Mm hmm. 00:58:17.49 Jala And um some of this stuff, this the hyperactive part here, that's me. 00:58:22.13 Jala that I have some of these. I don't have enough for a diagnosis, but I have some of this. So ah combined type is when the diagnosis ah overlaps and you have both the inattentive and the hyperactive versions. Then you, again, as Mike so lovingly put it, have the best of both worlds. 00:58:39.99 Jack Oh, let me tell you, it's ah it's a great place. 00:58:44.86 Jack And to me, the the interesting thing that that I kind of observe, ah in retrospect, ah about the way that ADHD kind of manifested in me as a kid, um is sort of, I'd call it kind of like the hierarchy of symptoms. um You know, there were a lot of things about the inattentive side that I definitely exhibited at the time, but those always seem to be outweighed by the hyperactive and impulsive things because those are much more easily observable by f everybody, basically, ah teachers teachers, friends, etc. 00:59:23.47 Jala Mm hmm. Right, right. 00:59:28.29 Jala Mm hmm. Right. So um adult ADHD. How about you tell us about that, Mike? 00:59:37.14 Michael Prehn Sure. So the National Institute of Mental Health says that adults who are diagnosed with ADHD experience several symptoms of ADHD before the age of 12. As adults, they currently experience at least five persistent symptoms of inattention and or five persistent symptoms of hyperactivity impulsivity. These symptoms must be present in two or more settings. For example, home versus work or school with friends or relatives or in other activities. And ah these symptoms interfere with or reduce the quality of social, school, or work functioning. 01:00:16.42 Jala right. So um yeah, and there's a little bit and what what they're saying here too is you know, they have at least some of these symptoms or they might even show more of these symptoms when they're younger. And because of masking and you know, just having the the hard knocks life of having to deal with it. ah Sometimes they can they can mask so hard that they mask themselves right into a new habit and already like they already do the the circumvention or whatever whatever kind of trick that they have developed to get around that particular challenge. 01:00:41.78 Jack Shoo! 01:00:42.09 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 01:00:52.27 Jala so um Jack, so I know you said you were unmedicated for a long time. When you started back on medication again as an adult, did that experience differ any? like Was it easier for you to deal with ah versus the first time you were on medication as a kid? or you know like what was the difference there? 01:01:10.82 Jack The difference was market ah like really big. um I think I don't think that that's necessarily the case for a lot of people. um As someone who was in therapy and then got my diagnosis and then was continuing in therapy while on medication. the, you know, here's how this works. And here's how to cope. And here's what the medication is going to do to you is was was not explained. 01:01:42.98 Jack um You know, I, I didn't really know what, how this was going to help, except I go to the nurse and I take my afternoon pill at 1pm, which you know, the nurse has to give you because it's, ah it's a controlled substance and all of that. 01:01:52.24 Jala Mmhmm. 01:01:59.35 Jala Right. 01:02:00.77 Jack um But as an adult, ah you know I started on Adderall about five years ago. i was I was on it for a good year and a half, two years before I was off for a couple more years and then I recently got back on it this year. um The way that I instantly knew just here is what she here's, here's what it has done to my body. And here's how I'm going to use what it has done to my body to kind of normalize function and normalize daily behaviors. I felt a lot better equipped. Um, you know, also as an adult, I had all of the knowledge. 01:02:50.04 Jack as to, you know, what are the actual symptoms of this? Not, he's not doing his homework, what are we going to do about it? 01:02:57.39 Jala Right, right. 01:02:57.79 Jack And, you know, that kind of stuff. um but Because, I mean, I don't know whether it was the kind of how primitive the science was regarding ADD, ADHD back in the 90s, or if I just had, you know, but poor support from parents and others about it, ah probably probably a bit of both, you know, 01:03:16.87 Jala Right. No disclosure. Right. Well, and then two, um it might be a thing where your parents were thinking that if you didn't have all of these specific labels on the the problems, quote unquote problems you've got, you know, then maybe that would help you so you don't hyper focus on them or feel bad about those things. I don't know. um I'm just. 01:03:40.88 Jack not feeling bad is not in my parents lexicon, I think we'll get to that experience later. 01:03:44.21 Jala Okay. so yeah Okay. 01:03:46.47 Jack ah And that's that's not just about this. 01:03:49.15 Jala Okay. Gotcha. 01:03:49.93 Jack But as but more to the point as as an adult with, you know, who is, you know, on treatment and medication for this, and and I see a therapist, um it feels a lot more illuminating. And, you know, we work towards the way that I can regularly function so as to both, you know, satisfy myself. um And, you know, try to inflate that self worth after decades of, you know, feeling like a failure because of, you know, all of these, what some might call objective failures that I had in my early adulthood. um You know, we're also working on how 01:04:34.28 Jack how I can present this to my partner, how I can present this to work if necessary. 01:04:36.68 Jala Mm hmm. 01:04:41.33 Jack you know And I'm trying to make that unnecessary as as much as possible. um you know ah by you know one of One of my coping mechanisms with with this I think is just like, i I don't know how much this overlaps, but something that has always helped me 01:04:46.36 Jala Right, right. 01:04:58.94 Jack is I remember stuff like you wouldn't believe and people are always impressed by that. 01:05:02.08 Jala Mm hmm. 01:05:05.47 Jack and kind And I feel like it's kind of this weird party trick that I do to distract from the fact that it's tough to keep on task at work when somebody asks me about something and I know exactly what they're talking about. 01:05:13.33 Jala Right. 01:05:17.70 Jack And I could say on this date, this happened. and and i you know i The coping mechanisms are are way more Obvious and illuminated to me than they were as a kid and I mean I feel in a much better place if I'm being honest Yeah, 01:05:34.56 Jala Right. Well, I mean, if you have more knowledge around the situation that you're grappling with, then you're more able to then deploy those coping mechanisms or whatever it else you need to do in that moment. 01:05:38.82 Jack yeah it and You know knowing 01:05:50.79 Jack yeah yeah it and you know knowing knowing all of the the ways that I can you know manage, what I can manage, and try to manage what's harder to manage. And and to me, that's the the impulsive stuff. um you know I try to be always always on the go. ah People remark to me every day, like, why do you walk so fast? 01:06:18.52 Jala yeah um 01:06:19.57 Jack And it's it's because I can get in fewer conversations where people get annoyed that I interrupt them all the time if I'm moving all of the time. 01:06:29.30 Jala listen 01:06:29.64 Jack you know the The impulsive behavior has always been the thing that's toughest for me to control, ah interrupting people. um you know, even in a ah podcast situation ah can be difficult at times. And, you know, the way the way that people notice that is, is tough. 01:06:45.57 Jala Mmhmm. Mmhmm. 01:06:48.13 Jack So, you know, cope coping with that has been probably the most difficult thing as an adult. 01:06:54.21 Jala See, you've got this little hand here you can use. I'm using it right now. 01:06:58.89 Jack I'm not in the Zencastr tab. I'm in the notes tab. 01:07:00.94 Jala Oh, okay. 01:07:02.25 Jack I'm sorry. 01:07:03.34 Jala Well, that would be why I put my little little hand. 01:07:03.60 Jack Hold on. Oh, hand raised. 01:07:05.78 Jala Yeah. So that way you can let whoever's talking know that you want to say something and then they can wrap it up so you can get your thought in. So yeah, you just have to remember to turn it back off. 01:07:16.25 Michael Prehn Miracle of modern technology. 01:07:17.67 Jala Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I understand. ah You hear me kind of going it but ah all the time because i'm I'm always trying to insert my thought. And part of part of the reason I do that, I'm not trying to be rude. 01:07:29.23 Jack No. 01:07:29.34 Jala I'm going to forget. 01:07:30.91 Jack Right. No, it's same. 01:07:31.25 Jala I'm going to forget. I need to say the thing. I'm going to forget. so so yeah um Mike, do you want to continue on and tell us about other things that will trigger stuff? 01:07:43.23 Michael Prehn Sure. So ah other mental health conditions, stress or physical conditions, and even illnesses can cause similar symptoms to those of ADHD. Therefore, really the only way to get a diagnosis is a thorough evaluation by a healthcare care provider or mental health professional. um Well, they will be able to determine the cause of the symptoms and identify effective treatments. During this eval, the healthcare care provider or mental health professional will probably examine factors including the person's mood, medical history, and whether they struggle with other issues such as alcohol or substance misuse. ah Thorough evaluation also includes looking at the person's history of childhood behavior and school experiences. 01:08:29.21 Michael Prehn um In order to obtain this information, an individual's health care provider may ask for permission to talk ah to people around them, such as partners, family members, close friends, and others who knew the individual well, ah just trying to get the context on everything. 01:08:45.96 Jala ah Right. So Mike, you are not diagnosed, are you? 01:08:50.09 Michael Prehn No, I am not. 01:08:50.13 Jala Okay. Okay. So you haven't had to go through this process. 01:08:54.49 Michael Prehn No, I had a round of some kind of all purpose poking around my mental health. Uh, when I was a kid, when I started having those school issues, they're just sort of trying to grasp at straws and figure out what the underlying cause was. Um, as I mentioned at the top of the show, I do have some flavor of ADHD. I'm fairly sure, but it is probably a lesser sort of thing. I don't struggle with the, uh, attention to detail organization part of things, but some other stuff such as the, uh, trying not to fidget whenever I'm sitting through a lecture, things like that. I definitely do have. 01:09:33.71 Michael Prehn um But a lot of this questioning followed a similar track whenever they're trying to figure out if I had a learning disability as a kid because I was struggling in school. Same kind of thing. They went and talked to my family, my friends, teachers, all that stuff, because especially as a child, you're going to have a hard time explaining what exactly the problem is to a healthcare professional. 01:09:54.53 Jala Right. Right. So Jack, had you went through this a couple of times, you would have gone through it. 01:10:00.18 Jack A couple of times, yes. 01:10:01.17 Jala Yeah. So, so what was that experience like as a kid versus an adult? 01:10:05.83 Jack um As a kid, i there were a few sessions with a psychologist with my parents present where they mostly talked. um As far as I know, there were not other people sort of pulled, interviewed, whatever, as part of that process. And then there were a series of tests. I never learned what those tests were or what they were supposed to measure. 01:10:30.69 Jala Mm. 01:10:33.31 Jack um Then ah when I was re-diagnosed as an adult, when, you know, when i When I said, let's make an honest go of this as as an adult and see what we can do, um the tests were a lot more transparent. you know we're measuring We're measuring some intellect, we're measuring recall, we're measuring reaction time and all of that. And here's where a lot of people with combined ADHD fall in a certain spectrum of range or you know above or below X range. 01:11:05.54 Jack ah you know Here's the reaction time it should take to answer this very simple question. And here's you three times that. Oh, okay. That that that makes a lot more sense. um But that process was just me. um no No one else involved in that, um including my partner who at the time also has ADHD. 01:11:22.04 Jala Mmhmm. 01:11:27.53 Jack um But yeah, that was that was kind of a solo experience that time. 01:11:33.44 Jala gotcha. Well, that makes sense, because as an adult, you're more able to ah give them information and and assess things about yourself, especially since you already had a prior diagnosis as a kid. So, you know, that that made it perhaps a little bit easier, even if you didn't know what all was going on as a kid in that situation. 01:11:54.63 Jack Right. 01:11:56.17 Jala So So yeah, undiagnosed adults with ADHD may feel it is impossible to get organized, stick to a job, or remember to keep appointments. Daily tasks such as getting up in the morning, preparing to leave the house for work, arriving at work on time, and being productive on the job can be especially challenging for adults with undiagnosed ADHD. I would also say undiagnosed ADHD asterisks, also anybody who's unmedicated because, like, um 01:12:24.93 Jack Right. 01:12:25.56 Jala you know like If you are unmedicated and not actively doing stuff to kind of mitigate the situation, then it's effectively the same as not having a diagnosis. so 01:12:36.14 Jack I would I would generally agree with that as somebody who went on medicated for a number of years, like, you know, noticing what happened, at least to me, you know, the no, no two bodies are the same. And the way your brain chemistry is affected by a drug is going to be different, obviously. But for me, you know, I may as well have been at square one again, until I was 36 years old. 01:13:00.88 Jala Well, and, you know, um people who at least suspect that they might be ADHD do have the leg up of having that knowledge and thinking, oh, well, some of these things might be issues for me. What are some ways I can kind of cope with that? And then like taking active steps, like if you have absolutely no idea what's going on, I would imagine that it would be you ah harder still because then you're in that self criticism, taking the criticism to hard kind of situation and you don't, understand that you also actually have a neurodiverse situation going on and it's not ah is something that is a fault that you have. 01:13:38.62 Jala It's not a fault. It's just a brain wiring that's different. 01:13:40.00 Jack so yeah and 01:13:42.31 Jala So and these histories or these adults may have a history of problems with school work and relationships. Adults with ADHD may seem restless and may try to do several things at the same time, most of them unsuccessfully. They sometimes prefer quick fixes rather than taking the steps needed to gain greater rewards. 01:14:03.59 Jala So, um, yeah. 01:14:05.99 Jack Oh, yeah. 01:14:06.71 Jala I heard a sigh. yeah 01:14:10.10 Michael Prehn yeah That was a sigh of agreement, I suspect. 01:14:12.97 Jack it's it's i've I've gotten out my third bingo card, Mike, and it's full. 01:14:18.13 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah, yeah. 01:14:18.27 Jala ah 01:14:18.64 Jack What am I going to do? 01:14:20.64 Jala Right. 01:14:21.25 Michael Prehn Should have printed more. No, i'm I'm right there with you. There's a lot of this stuff, especially the sensitivity to criticism and tendency to be more self-critical. 01:14:28.77 Jack Yes. 01:14:32.48 Michael Prehn That's one of the symptoms of this that I definitely do possess, and even to such a degree that other people in my life have mentioned it. It's come up and employee evaluations before you just too hard on yourself, Mike, that kind of thing. 01:14:46.92 Jala Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So um talking about, again, quote unquote, treatment or coping mechanisms or however you want to say that the way that you tackle the thing, ah therapy and medication are the most effective treatments for ADHD. So there you go, Jack, check off the bingo card or put your little little tabs, your dog, dog, your card. 01:15:09.38 Jack I mean, to me, this is this is a good square. 01:15:09.40 Jala um Yeah, right, exactly. so um In addition to these, there ah ah are some other strategies that might help manage symptoms, such as exercising regularly, especially when you're feeling hyperactive or restless, eating regular healthy meals, getting plenty of sleep, trying to turn off screens at least one hour before bedtime, and getting seven to nine hours of sleep every night. um So, so far, some of these things are things that seem like mammoth tasks in today's Grind Culture Society, especially, and with all of the kind of, you know, gripping the seat of your chair, you know, or the arms of your chair with the knuckles white. 01:15:38.64 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 01:15:52.50 Jala ah When you're looking at some of the stuff going on in the world today, ah it's difficult to to do some of these. 01:15:56.64 Jack Right. 01:15:59.65 Jala It's ongoing challenges for all adults in our society, I think. but ah Working on time management and organization, prioritizing time-sensitive tasks, and writing down assignments, messages, appointments, and important thoughts. um I myself keep a bullet point list. This is a thing that I also got my sister into doing, and the bullet point list saves her life every day. so um Bullet point lists are kind of my thing as y'all looking at my notes know there's bullet points all over the place. so 01:16:29.31 Michael Prehn I was gonna say, this sounds familiar. 01:16:31.04 Jala Right, right. ah Connecting with people and maintaining relationships. That's also hard if you are ADHD because like you your time your sense of time is not there ah the same way that it is for someone else. 01:16:41.69 Jack No. 01:16:43.21 Jala So like for you, now this is something, so so Dave's family is on spectrum for for different stuff, different neurodiverse stuff. 01:16:43.84 Jack Right. 01:16:51.35 Jala And so Dave exhibits a lot of different signs, but I don't think he has enough for a diagnosis of any kind, but he does have diagnosed anxiety. ah which is one of the co-morbidities or co-occurring things that happen with these these neurodiverse situations. And he definitely has some kind of situation, we just don't have a label for it. And um you know ah for him, he tells me all the time, he's like, yeah, I have like a couple of friends that I talk to once every maybe 10 years because I just don't i ah don't keep up with things. I don't talk to people. I don't i don't remember that I need to do this maintenance thing yeah to the relationship. And like you know he's good friends with these people because those other people understand how he is and can just roll with that. 01:17:36.76 Jala So ah the way that he gets his social time in is because I drag him around and make him talk to people. So he loves talking to people, but he doesn't remember that he needs to talk to people. So um scheduling activities with friends, particularly supportive people who understand your challenges with ADHD. So scheduling activities with friends, that's how he keeps up with his current friends because he does a podcast with them. 01:18:01.54 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:18:02.19 Jala So, so yeah. Uh, and then taking medications as directed and avoiding use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs, especially in combination with those, those, like if you're taking medications and then you're taking other stuff that alters stuff and interacts with medications and that gets a little bit, um, iffy, some people can handle that more than others, but, um, Jack, have you noticed how these things affect you? 01:18:20.09 Jack Yes. 01:18:26.43 Jala Like if you decide you're going to have a drink or whatever. 01:18:29.52 Jack ah Thankfully, no, i don't I don't drink that much. 01:18:32.85 Jala Good. 01:18:34.05 Jack But when I do, you know, it's strange. 01:18:40.62 Jack I think it's the best way to describe it is I feel strange and um 01:18:46.35 Jack I wish I could go into more detail. I'm thankful that I can't go into more detail. 01:18:51.20 Jala Right. 01:18:51.31 Jack um For me, I think the the avoiding use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs is more of a it danger of you know having a vice and having that kind of hyper focus. um 01:19:06.39 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:19:07.68 Jack you know, taking taking some of those things off the table when I already have a problem with binge eating, when I already have a problem with overspending is, you know, not something that I've really had to actively do, but it's something I am thankful I don't have as an issue on top of these other things. 01:19:16.26 Jala Right. 01:19:25.65 Jala Right, right. Because you don't want to compound your problems. You want to get rid of your problems and not have problems, you know? So, you know, that's, yeah, yeah, absolutely. 01:19:33.92 Jack Aspirational. 01:19:36.45 Jala So, yeah, ah do either. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mike. 01:19:41.45 Michael Prehn Yeah, ah I just wanted to add that, um you know, part of the difficulty with this is that if you look at the suggested quote unquote treatments here, um and then you think about what we've discussed ah the experience of having ADHD is like Um, they're kind of at odds with each other. 01:20:00.04 Jala Mmhmm. 01:20:00.64 Michael Prehn Like the second bullet point here, eating regular healthy meals. 01:20:03.78 Jala Right. 01:20:04.04 Michael Prehn Well, pretty much the only way you can do that is if you're doing meal prep, which requires planning and staying on task for several hours while you do your meal prep. That's not going to come naturally as someone who does have ADD ah getting plenty of sleep, you know, that's going to be really difficult. Like remembering to take your medication as directed, it's a little bit of a vicious cycle thing because if you are dealing with ADHD, it's going to be pretty tough to remember stuff like that for a lot of people. 01:20:36.05 Jala aha Yeah, absolutely. And again, like um the the way that I managed to keep all the different balls in the air for myself, and i'm not I'm not neurodiverse or at least not neurodiverse enough for some kind of a diagnosis, um but like i've I've then imparted this onto people who are neurodiverse and it seems to help them. I put constantly like the moment I make a plan, I put it on my calendar with like several reminders to remind me that the thing is coming and I put it on a wall calendar and I I put like all these notes and reminders everywhere. It's all over my phone. It's all over everything. I have a list of things I need to take care of. I have the the grocery list and all that stuff on my phone. I have timers all throughout the day to remind me to do things that have to be done. Basic things like take out the trash. 01:21:22.50 Jala I have that on my phone to remind me to do it because I won't necessarily remember from day to day with all the things I juggle. For someone who has ADHD or something like that, having these reminders on your phone would also help you to kind of at least remember in that moment when that reminder comes up, you just don't clear it until you do it. You know but you have to you have to be the type of person who's already looking at their phone. 01:21:44.57 Michael Prehn Right. 01:21:47.19 Jala like If you set your phone down, then that doesn't help you you know and you're going to have to find a different way to do it. 01:21:52.78 Jack or uses your phone to do that. 01:21:55.07 Jala Yeah. 01:21:55.58 Jack ah To me, I'm looking at my phone all the time. 01:21:56.37 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:21:58.26 Jack It's not for that. 01:21:59.37 Jala Right, right, right. Well, that's why I have it like as a notification banner and I have it like ping me and set an alarm and everything and and all of that mess. 01:22:05.54 Jack and so 01:22:07.77 Jala So that way like, no, like just a little while ago, um spoilers, it is currently 6.14 here in Houston. And at 6 p.m. promptly, four different reminders popped up on my phone telling me of stuff I need to do the moment I get off podcasts. 01:22:23.35 Michael Prehn The after work Yeah 01:22:23.73 Jack be overwhelmed i would feel oh 01:22:28.58 Jala So yeah, it doesn't work for everybody, but um you know like there are ways to to at least kind of maybe maybe get some reminders going to keep things regular. Or if you happen to have a partner who can do some of that stuff and kind of compliment that, understand that you have a problem with that and help you. Like Dave gets anxiety when it comes to trying to prep or plan things, anything, doesn't like to plan anything. 01:22:48.71 Jack Be overwhelmed, 01:22:53.15 Jala um So, I do the meal planning and then we prep things together usually. 01:22:53.21 Jack I would feel. 01:22:58.15 Jala And, you know, like I'm i'm reading off the um recipe or i'm I'm manning some of the more difficult things or what have you and then he's doing whatever he needs to do to help with it. Or he might be doing yard work and I'm doing all the meal prep myself. You know, something else like that where he doesn't have to trigger his anxiety in the moment, trying to get things prepared for the week. So that way he eats a regular meal and everything. 01:23:24.83 Michael Prehn Yeah, we all gotta help each other out. 01:23:24.99 Jala So yeah. 01:23:25.17 Jack Yeah. 01:23:27.25 Jala Yeah. So Jack, it must be a little bit more difficult if, um, like ah is your current partner, uh, the one with ADHD or was that a different one? 01:23:34.91 Jack No, that was that was my ex-wife. 01:23:35.58 Jala Okay. Okay. 01:23:38.20 Jack My current wife, does it does not have ADHD. And it it was an uphill struggle to kind of get her to understand it a little bit because, you know, ah oh at first a lot of it was approaching things once we started cohabitating as, you know, I tell you to do these things and then you forget to do them. What's up? um you know This is a little frustrating when it's the same conversation to do the same thing over and over again. Hey, what's up? um At the time I was not medicated for one, which which isn't an excuse, but also I wasn't terribly you know regulated in that particular way. 01:24:18.07 Jack um ah COVID was a weird development in and how how things worked for me because you know I was at home all of the time, except for when I was at work. 01:24:22.77 Jala Yeah. 01:24:31.72 Jack I didn't have the luxury of working from home one single day during COVID. um So being being at home 01:24:36.89 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:24:39.94 Jack the entire time and trying to limit being outside if it just really got to that sense of overwhelm with, well, how am I going to itemize what I have to do at home based on what my wife would like done with the house? Let's go buy room. Well, that's not going to work. I'll stick with that for about two days. ah 01:24:56.24 Jala Mmhmm. 01:24:57.09 Jack Okay, let's prioritize stuff, lets stick with that for two days. um And and it eventually we kind of reached this equilibrium where she began to understand how things work. you know There are still frustrations obviously, and it's and it's always in an evolving process. you know When you are a neurodiverse person, a neuroatypical living with someone who is neurotypical and neurotypical with what most people call very Type A tendencies. 01:25:27.35 Jala Oh yeah. 01:25:28.42 Jack um you know You mentioned the four notifications promptly popping up at 6pm. 01:25:28.48 Jala Mhm. 01:25:38.82 Jack That's also my partner to a T. um you know Calendar invites for everything. ah and and this kind of thing and you know that's that's how she regulates her life and it is tough for me to kind of get get with the program sometimes. 01:25:55.79 Jala Right. but Well, again, everybody has like their own way of going about stuff. And I will say that that same thing where it's like you I keep on telling you a thing and you keep on forgetting. 01:26:01.01 Jack and sir 01:26:07.00 Jala It's not that I didn't understand that about my husband, Dave, but to my dad, especially what my dad would do is he would say a thing to Dave, Dave, I want you to do X. And Dave says, OK, and then promptly forgets all about it, that the kind of conversation even happened. And then sometime later, my dad comes to me and is all in a huff and yells at me because he's upset at Dave because Dave didn't do this thing. 01:26:28.47 Jack oh boy 01:26:31.31 Jala And why didn't you guys do this thing? And I'm like, I had no idea this thing was even a thing. like what What are you talking about? And so I finally drilled it into his head where he now understands and the way that I told him and the way that he understands it, because he doesn't, you know, he he can only recognize the anxiety stuff. He doesn't understand any of the rest of neurodiversity, but he understands anxiety because he has anxiety. 01:26:51.49 Jack Oh boy. 01:26:54.63 Jala So um you know he just is told and understands, Dave's mind is a sieve. 01:27:00.65 Michael Prehn Thank 01:27:01.50 Jala If you tell him it will fall out of his head, tell me. I will make sure that we get it done. 01:27:06.57 Michael Prehn you. 01:27:06.99 Jala And then for Dave, I don't tell him a big plan about everything. I just say, we have some stuff to do after work, so ah just be prepared to do some stuff when you get home, and then we'll do stuff when we get home. And I will inform him whatever it is or whatnot, or he will make a plan for himself that is something that he is okay with and and can manage on his own for what he's doing. And he tells me, so I can fill into him, well, remember, we also have blah. you know And then we just kind of co-op it together until we can get everything and accomplished that needs doing. 01:27:39.46 Jala But for a while, there was a big thing where like my dad just could not understand at all and would just get so mad and like, well, why wouldn't he do? Why isn't he doing this? And he then you know he understood finally. I'm like, it's not that Dave has a problem doing the thing. It's not that he's you know trying to avoid doing the thing or is blatantly disrespecting you or whatever whatever kind of weird nonsense you've come up with in your head there, my dude. um He just doesn't remember that that conversation happened. 01:28:08.60 Jack yeah 01:28:09.10 Jala It doesn't remember. 01:28:09.40 Jack i I've gotten to a point with my wife where she is willing to send me emails that she titles Jack Jobs. And I am willing to not be annoyed by that happening because I know that if I don't receive it in that particular way that is saved, that is somewhere that I can refer back to it, I'm gonna have trouble getting this stuff done. 01:28:18.19 Michael Prehn perfect 01:28:33.94 Jala Right. Right. 01:28:36.09 Michael Prehn Yeah, this is my level of ah kind of neurosis about organizing things. I have an entire task management system for our house. It's got and the A priority list, the B priority, C, reminders, calendars, you name it, the works. It's very extra, and but it's the only way that it works for me because I'm a little bit of an inverse Dave in this case, is that if I don't plan things, that's when I get anxiety. 01:29:00.57 Jala Right. 01:29:05.26 Michael Prehn So I have to plan it excessively and then I feel better because it's like, it's not rattle around rattling around my brain at that point it's somewhere where it's not gonna get missed i guess. 01:29:16.32 Jala Right. Right. So for me, like I tend to be like the type of person who I like to plan stuff because I like to have a trajectory. Usually when I'm doing stuff, it's because I'm also thinking about 20 steps ahead of myself. And so, you know, like i'm I'm thinking ahead and I'm planning and I'm positioning to get some stuff knocked out so we can move on to a different thing. 01:29:29.84 Jack Hehehe. 01:29:38.56 Jala And, you know, like there's a whole progression in my head. So, ah like I say, I program my workouts. I program my workouts. Dave cannot handle that because it gives him anxiety to have a program. But for me, I need the program because I am planning out how I'm going to hit all the muscles in the time that I've got and do the different types of activities throughout the week so that I can get to the the point I need to be at you know for whatever my goals are at the time. And, you know, that's just not something that he can do. So, um you know, we just kind of operate in our own different ways. And, you know, like if we work out together, usually, unless we're doing something like practicing Muay Thai, where we're both doing just like a freeform thing to practice whatever we did in class last, we go our separate ways in the gym and he does his thing and I do mine and, you know, we we move on, re reconvene and then go get coffee or whatever. 01:30:27.74 Jack Heh. 01:30:29.13 Jala you know, that kind of a thing. And, um, you know, it's just a lot of communication, just making sure to talk and, you know, ask about like, so what, when you start staring off Dave into the distance and I don't know where you went to, where did you go? What was going on there? And, you know, sometimes he can tell me and sometimes he can't. you know, for me, if I start looking off in a direction, I'm not zoning out, I'm actually probably got multiple tracks in my brain running at the same time, I've got too much going on, which again, that's like the the symptoms that I have that refer me to being kind of like a hyperactive brain of a person. 01:30:53.35 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 01:31:06.34 Michael Prehn That makes sense. 01:31:06.73 Jack Mmhmm. 01:31:07.31 Jala So Yeah. So we did wrap up the academic portion, which means we get to talk experiential stuff. Yay. So, uh, we kind of already touched on like growing up, how aware were you of neurodiversity, but did you all have something further to add? I'll i'll throw to Jack first. 01:31:28.51 Jack Uh, just briefly, because I feel like I've kind of monopolized sort of the experiential piece already. Um, the, you know, the existence of neurodiversity to me as a kid, no idea had no idea. My first experiences with knowing what autism were was being questioned whether I was autistic by people. Uh, my My parents are the kind of people who love those, you know, Asperger's type characters on TV to this day, which, you know, that is its own host of problematic things that I don't know if we want to get into. 01:31:57.77 Jala Hmm. 01:31:58.58 Michael Prehn oh Yeah Mm 01:32:02.54 Jala Yeah. 01:32:06.50 Jack We certainly don't need to. People can research why that's problematic on their own time. 01:32:11.12 Jack But, you know, ah yeah, ah my my my knowledge was rudimentary at best and growing up. 01:32:20.27 Jala Well, a lot of it was there weren't really resources available specifically for kids. Like these days, at least there's some media out there that's trying to get out the message of like more diversity overall than what we were presented as kids. so That's what I think anyway. 01:32:37.64 Michael Prehn Yeah, that's true It can't be possible because by its definition neurodiversity can mean many many many myriad things so it's uh 01:32:37.94 Jack Yeah, I mean, yeah, but you you got to be really careful about how you select that representation. Because again, I feel like you wind up with the good doctor, you wind up with house and stuff like that. 01:32:43.43 Jala Right. 01:32:49.93 Jack And and people think that this is an accurate representation of neurodiversity when hoo boy. 01:32:50.04 Jala Right. Yeah. Right. Absolutely. 01:33:03.60 Jack Mm hmm. 01:33:05.67 Michael Prehn Then you run into the problem where you start ah accidentally fetishizing what it's like to be neurodiverse when you have all these ah boy genius characters on television, which is right. 01:33:15.15 Jack Right. Yeah. Neurodiversity is a superpower. 01:33:20.82 Michael Prehn Go ahead, Jala. 01:33:21.66 Jala I was just going to say it's kind of like the fetishization that you see of, um say again, like you can have the autistic person who can totally from his own head draw this detailed re-recreation of this city. Like everybody's seen that kind of a thing where they're like, look at this. This person could do all this really cool stuff. You know, it's a superpower this person's got, as you said. So as you were saying, though, Mike, 01:33:48.00 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's just, um you know, ah neurodiversity as a superpower. The problem is that it flattens the complex human experience into a two dimensional character. And that happens with People of color and all kinds of minority groups and it's just it's never good It never feels good to see on TV. 01:34:04.56 Jack right 01:34:08.64 Michael Prehn I uh Echoing what you said earlier jack the number of times in my life by both friends and family I've been compared to that one guy from criminal minds whose name I can never remember You know the one everyone knows one 01:34:19.29 Jack oh boy yeah i know i know I don't know the name either, but I know the one. 01:34:24.87 Jala Uh-huh. 01:34:25.47 Michael Prehn And I'm just like, yeah, that's cool and all, but like, I don't know. I got other stuff going on besides saying statistics at people. 01:34:35.92 Jack Right. 01:34:36.56 Jala Right. Right. Absolutely. And you know, that's, that's part of the thing. I mean, that's the reason why i I try to cover different topics on this show is to give people breathing room to talk about the thing and the way that they experienced the thing, whatever the thing might be that day. So, so Mike, for you, um, how aware were you of neurodiversity growing up? 01:34:58.94 Michael Prehn So like I mentioned a little bit earlier, I was kind of aware of it in the abstract, but not, uh, applying it to myself. Um, my parents were psychologists and, uh, so they would talk about autism. Um, but I never really felt like it was a thing that applied to me because as a kid, I didn't understand that it is a very. myriad ah family of things and everyone's experience with being autistic is a little bit different. so What was being portrayed in media that I was watching growing up did not match what what I felt like or what I acted like. so I figured it wasn't applicable to me. 01:35:40.87 Michael Prehn but um you know, whenever I got a little bit older and I got a little bit more into like social media and getting on Twitter and talking to people and listening to podcasts, I started hearing perspectives from other people who were neurodivergent and autistic or ADHD. And a lot of what they're describing did match up with my lived experience. And that's when I kind of, and this was very recently last five years or so, but I kept hearing things over and over again that made me think, Oh yeah, 01:36:11.43 Michael Prehn No, I've been there before. I know what that's like. 01:36:14.26 Jala Right. So you, you very awesomely started segueing into the next question, which is, yeah, which is, which is about like, uh, when did you first suspect you were neuro distinct that you were a bit different from the neurotypical. 01:36:20.48 Michael Prehn Oh, thank you. 01:36:31.95 Michael Prehn Yeah, so it's kind of like collecting some of the symptoms that I kept seeing come up in conversations repeatedly, kind of commonalities between people who are neurodivergent. Uh, a couple of the ones that are on my bingo card in my everyday life is, uh, rejection sensitive dysphoria is a very common one, which, um, sparing the fancy medical talk for those who may not be familiar. 01:36:51.08 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:36:51.32 Jack Yeah. 01:36:56.03 Michael Prehn That basically means that when you get rejected, either, uh, romantically or professionally, uh, it hurts a lot, like even more so than a normal person, uh, might experience, quote unquote normal. Um, so that's a big one for me, which obviously overlaps with the ADHD, you know, self criticism, sensitivity to criticism thing. 01:37:16.24 Jala Mm, mm-hmm. 01:37:18.75 Michael Prehn That's a force multiplier that a lot of people experience both of those things. And it's tough. The, uh, The desire to have most information communicated to you in a particular fashion, especially I don't know how common this is, but one thing that I have and I've seen a lot is preferring to have information, especially professionally communicated in a written fashion, kind of similar to the Jack jobs that Jack's getting on emails, you know, 01:37:45.75 Jala Right. 01:37:46.86 Jack Yeah, same at work for sure. 01:37:47.74 Michael Prehn oh Yeah, it's, um, you know, I have similar to Dave have some difficulty remembering the contents of a verbal conversation often. And especially if I'm currently working on something and I'm elbow deep in a metaphorical surgery and someone comes in and starts jabbering at me, I'm not going to catch the first couple of sentences for sure. And then anything I might catch after that isn't going to stick around very long. 01:38:15.06 Jala Mike just said, quit yo jibba jibba. 01:38:19.56 Jack I ain't got no time. 01:38:21.00 Michael Prehn It's true. I wish I, I wish I could do it some days. So, um, you know, I, I, many of my coworkers could probably tell you that I very, very constantly preach, like, please put that in the task management system. Please open a ticket, please send an email, whatever the case may be. And when that doesn't happen, um, you know, it can feel challenging, uh, cause that's a boundary that I would like people to respect, but they don't always. So those are kind of my two big ah tent poles where when I saw other people talking about that online, the rejection sensitive to dysphoria and the kind of like having strong opinions about how information is communicated to you, that was really when the light bulb came on and I was like, oh, maybe I am an autistic person and I just didn't recognize it when I was younger. A lot of the signs made a lot of sense to me. 01:39:16.42 Jala Right, right. So, Jack, since you were kind of like tested and basically just thrust into taking medicine when you were young, ah like you didn't really like suspect you had a neurodivergent situation. 01:39:31.50 Jala You were just dumped into it kind of, I guess. 01:39:34.92 Jack ah I mean, you know even even from younger ages than that, you know it was always, he's interrupting in class, he's not doing the homework. ah you know i I don't fidget nearly as much as I did when I was a kid, but when I was a kid, it was a real problem. 01:39:52.60 Jala Mmhmm. 01:39:55.16 Jack But, you know, from a really young age, you know, through various means, it was communicated to me or my parents that I was pretty, you know, different and parentheses pejorative, I guess, um in a lot of ways. 01:40:12.31 Jack So, yeah, I mean, I had no idea that that meant anything about being neuro-distinct. I don't think my parents did either. 01:40:20.71 Jala Yeah. Well, and that's got to be really, ah again, kind of drawing it back to the trauma stuff we were talking about earlier, if that's got to add to your trauma experience to be told from a very young age, you know, that you are essentially a weirdo. You are weird. you know There's something wrong with you. There's something different about you that you know it's bad, bad, bad you know kinds of connotations being applied to you you know ah definitely doesn't fail. 01:40:47.18 Jack Mm hmm. 01:40:51.24 Jala I'm trying to trace it and track it to different things that I felt in my life. and for example I've given it a lot of thought and when it comes to my sense of gender identity as a person who ah for a long time had a switch, a male-female switch in my head, ah the way that I ended up processing things. And then now that's kind of melted away to where I'm i'm just Jala and I don't i don't care. 01:41:14.78 Jack Mm hmm. 01:41:15.02 Jala you know um like A lot of that comes from the fact that I was the weirdo. I was the weirdo for my gender situation because I grew up in a very binary household and I didn't fit the norms that I was assigned. I wasn't fitting the box of you know this is what a girl's supposed to be doing and how a girl's supposed to be acting and I didn't do the things in the prescribed manner. And I always chafed at that. And there were a lot of things about the trajectory of what that means. I'm going to have to be, you you know, a mother one day and this, that and the other, which were not things that were ever on my list of things to do, let's say. 01:41:51.94 Jala And um So always having this this box that I didn't fit and then being told that I was weird or you know having ah other assigned female and birth individuals look at me and go, you know ah assume things about me, but then they weren't true because I didn't fit that box, you know then that made it real hard. And I would imagine that if you are someone who is neurodivergent, who are growing up and you are dealing with stuff and then you're seeing that you know people are assuming things about you that you should be able to do X or you should be you know this way or whatever and then you're not fitting that mold that it's kind of similar in some ways to that experience where you know you end up with this kind of trauma response to a lot of stuff and it makes it hard um and it makes you more sensitive about that subject. 01:42:43.63 Jack Yeah, it does. And, you know, there's a whole there's a whole spectrum of ways to call people weird as we're learning from, you know, current ah political climate um and a whole different bunch of ways that one can be weird. 01:42:51.20 Jala Yeah. prisoner 01:42:58.01 Jack um I don't I don't feel like, you know, that certain name calling was the problem. I i never saw you know being a a nerd or being weird as really a problem so much as the just kind of dismissive way that people would treat you if you didn't conform to that sort of thing. 01:43:18.67 Michael Prehn Ha ha ha. 01:43:27.27 Jack you know the the being Being called something, that's attention and that's something that on occasion I crave. and you know, maybe maybe that informed me as a kid a little bit, I don't know, but you know, the the hard thing was just kind of being thrust aside and saying, well, you know, you're ungovernable in some way. 01:43:44.86 Jala Right. 01:43:51.19 Jack And so that's all we can do. And, you know, you are left to your own devices. And, you know, through therapy, through medication, through all of my various coping mechanisms, finding a way to kind of like inch back into normalized society as an adult, and, you know, being fairly socially capable is, has it's been a real victory, to be honest. 01:44:18.93 Jala So um we've already covered about, like both of you, about the diagnosis thing. So you were diagnosed when you were younger, Jack, you were re-diagnosed when you were older, and Mike, you have not gotten a diagnosis. um But Mike, would you be interested in getting a diagnosis or no? 01:44:38.77 Michael Prehn I think someday I probably will. um you know Part of the holdup for me is that, again, whatever flavor of ADHD I have is relatively manageable, as is even without medication. 01:44:47.51 Jack Mm hmm. 01:44:51.46 Michael Prehn so I get along okay with that. And then as far as the, uh, you know, being a autistic person, well, there really isn't a treatment that you can do with that. Um, you can get cognitive behavioral therapy to help you with some of the challenges it may present, but it's always going to be me basically. So I guess in my head, there isn't a whole lot of urgency to get that diagnosis. 01:45:17.71 Michael Prehn But I probably should and I think if nothing else because uh, I feel a little bit bad sort of uh Not being uh out and proud for lack of a better word about that like I would like to get a diagnosis primarily so that I can ah Take it to people and say yeah, you know, this is who I am and uh, I'm just a human like the rest of you guys and uh You probably never would have known because I'm effective at masking 01:45:47.02 Jala Right, right. 01:45:47.67 Jack Mmhmm. 01:45:48.94 Michael Prehn Help them understand that like people who are autistic or they're just people, you know? 01:45:53.31 Jala Absolutely, absolutely. So you're like, I want to get it so that I might seize it and then have it. 01:46:02.01 Michael Prehn Name badge, get a t-shirt made the whole nine yards. 01:46:03.49 Jala Right. Right. For sure. So yeah. But so so what what are you doing for treatment for yourself? um You know, insofar as like you already said that you have your whole task manager thing and then at work you have your task manager thing. 01:46:18.99 Jala So for your organizational stuff, that helps a lot. But you also mentioned that you have some ADHD type symptoms. So what do you do to um deal with that? Or is that kind of um same same coping strategies? 01:46:33.91 Michael Prehn a lot of the challenges that are inherent to having ADHD and autism, I have found, um at least in my case, that an effective thing is being aware of your own bullshit, is what I call it. So every once in a while, something will be 01:46:48.86 Jack Thank 01:46:52.99 Michael Prehn and unusually upsetting to me and i have to i have trained myself over time to take a moment to step back and go is this a reasonable amount of bothering or is this something that maybe i shouldn't let live in my head rent free and i'll give you an example um so Brittany has a wide variety of like ah cosmetic products and uh 01:47:18.54 Michael Prehn Being a dude, I do not understand a lot of it, and that's probably a flippant way to dismiss that, but it's just not something I'm super involved with. A very simple yeah shampoo, conditioner, body wash, like that pretty much does me right. 01:47:33.32 Jala you've You that you don't have the all-in-one? 01:47:33.50 Michael Prehn So I had this move. 01:47:39.80 Michael Prehn I have at least evolved to that level that I don't use all in what I used to. 01:47:44.33 Jala And now you've got three whole products. 01:47:45.19 Michael Prehn That's good. 01:47:46.73 Jala Wow. 01:47:47.89 Michael Prehn I have three things. 01:47:48.57 Jala ah Right, okay, sorry. yeah 01:47:51.31 Michael Prehn That's right. No, it's that fair jab. But, uh, yeah, so earlier this year I was looking through this thing, try and clean the house, you know, and I'm looking at all these bottles and there's a, there's a body wash and then there's body lotion and then there's a body scrub and then there's body butter. And I had this moment where I was just like, why the fuck do you need this many things for your body? Ah, start getting really bent out of shape about it and then i had to like just take a step back and be like this is not a thing that's worth being mad about because this is probably just me wanting to you know one of the common things amongst autistic people is like we want to understand. 01:48:32.63 Michael Prehn the Boxes that things go into it's I think probably where they like having a preference for a certain communication method comes from it's like I want things to be in silos that I can understand and there's this whole broad spectrum of Hygiene products that i I don't really get and I think that's where that frustration was coming from and probably worse because I am a dude and so I don't really understand a lot of that stuff so I had to have 01:49:00.39 Michael Prehn ah Once I called myself down, I had to have Brittany be like, break down all of the things. I'm like, what do you use a body scrub for? And she's like, Oh, well, it's for this. And it's like exfoliating like, okay, cool. Next. And like, went through all the categories. 01:49:14.79 Jack Thank 01:49:14.90 Michael Prehn And that helped because then I had the things in the silos and I could understand why you would need all of these different things. So it's um for me with both adhd and autism a lot of it is Uh again, I call it ah being aware of my own bullshit sometimes Mm 01:49:31.22 Jala and right Well, that first off, that is an absolutely adorable story and I can empathize. um As much as I do have a box of makeup stuff and I use makeup things, there are times where I look into the bathroom and I get mad. 01:49:49.96 Jala And what happens for me is i will turn to david go dave it is totally unfair that women have all these expectations to have all this bullshit i'm so mad that i have to have a hundred products in this bathroom and you have like three. yeah and 01:50:05.77 Michael Prehn It doesn't seem balanced, no. 01:50:06.73 Jala No, no, but it's like the thing is, is that like between the societal expectations of what women need to do, and then also the the fact that like the way that we're taught to to find some self-care and self-pampering is like to do like that have a facial every once in a while that you can do. Well, that involves like if you're doing a full serious thing, like six products just for that. Like, not to mention the implements and things that go into that. 01:50:31.89 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:50:33.77 Jala Like, it's it's a mess. It's a mess. There's so much crap. And, you know, like, yeah, I will get upset about it. So I totally understand. So just just know that in your heart of hearts that, um you know, me with my little flipping back and forth in the in the gender spectrum all over the place, I get frustrated and pissed off at it too. And other times I'm like, no, I need all 700 items. 01:50:54.26 Michael Prehn Yeah. 01:50:57.63 Michael Prehn yeah I think it's probably relatable to more people than you might think. 01:51:01.74 Jala Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. 01:51:03.10 Jack I've got a fun cosmetic anecdote too. 01:51:05.85 Jala Ooh, go for it. 01:51:07.09 Michael Prehn Mm-hmm. 01:51:07.99 Jack now might My wife has ah has a large variety of what she calls her potions, smoke and mirrors. 01:51:13.74 Jack ah and the way that we kind of use the fact that I have this motor that keeps me running when do we go to stores and whatnot is she will go shop and she will tell me here's the brand and here's what I'm looking for and I will systematically hunt that shit down in the store if I'm able. 01:51:36.60 Jala That is, that's awesome. 01:51:37.09 Jack So we use that hyper focus. 01:51:37.35 Michael Prehn It's a good use. of Yeah. 01:51:40.88 Jala That's awesome. Meanwhile, like I will go into like, I cannot go to someplace like a Walmart because I will get lost and I will just like lose my sense of purpose. And I'm like, I'm walking down an aisle and I'm looking around at everything and then I'm just like, Dave, why am I here? I don't even remember why I'm in the store. 01:51:58.62 Jack That! 01:52:00.64 Jala What did we come here for? And he has to tell me because I get lost. So, and that's just because I like to explore. So I'm looking at literally everything because that's one of the things I like to do is I like to poke around everywhere. So ah then I forget what I was doing in the first place. 01:52:12.99 Jack Mm-hmm. 01:52:15.23 Jala This is why I will never ever beat an open world game. So ah too much stuff going on. 01:52:18.98 Michael Prehn Yeah, it's too much information. 01:52:19.80 Jack Oh, yuck. 01:52:22.38 Jala And like the main story is just never compelling enough as, as that other random thing over there that I see. So. 01:52:29.94 Michael Prehn no 01:52:30.28 Jala So yeah, um anyway, ah Jack, how is this having a diagnosis affected your life? like um I know that you as a result of having a diagnosis have access to medication, which you more recently started taking again. 01:52:45.84 Jala So how's it been, particularly as an adult? 01:52:51.89 Jack Well, let's, let's start from the present and kind of work backwards. So I, I was off medication for a couple of years and then I sort of forwarded all of my information onto my GP. to see, hey, can I get back on the Adderall? And the first thing I found out after we went through that process and I got my prescription was, we've been in a quote, Adderall shortage for, I don't know, 18 months to two years now. um 01:53:21.79 Michael Prehn um 01:53:22.99 Jack Pharmaceuticals say that the reason is because ah the DEA kind of regulates things to such a degree that you can only make so much. And I don't know what the veracity of those claims are. I mean, I assume that, you know, pharmaceuticals are all about the profit motive. So the fact that there's a shortage would indicate that there's probably something else going on. 01:53:47.36 Michael Prehn Mm hmm. 01:53:48.46 Jack Otherwise they could sell all of this for, you know, make millions of more dollars. But um to anybody out there right now who is suffering through that, you know I feel you, I was waiting ah almost a month for my initial prescription to come through. 01:54:04.90 Jala Mm-hmm. 01:54:05.30 Jack um you know It came through a few days after the initial date we were supposed to record. So you know i have I've got ah almost a month of ah of pills under my belt, so to speak, kind of literally. um But you know that that sort of like the actual logistics of this thing are really tough right now. um And how it's affected by how how kind of the access has affected my life in kind of a more positive way sort of working backwards from where we are now is 01:54:41.36 Jack there iss There's just ah a wealth of knowledge that didn't either didn't exist or I wasn't provided or both back in the 1990s that there is now. um And that's that's across just just a whole ah whole wide swath of how how this disability kind of works. um you know, the the the emotional piece, it you know, the idea of combined ADHD, as opposed to what it was kind of thought of in the 90s, that I mean, that was in itself was like a revelation. So, um you know, this, the way that it's, 01:55:23.04 Jack the way that I've been able to have my life affected in a positive way is is important to mention, I think, because you know when you're dealing with all of these challenges, I think it's easy to fall into a hole saying that you know society expects too much of me and it you know I'm never going to climb back to this place where I am both functional and you know regulated in my own affairs. 01:55:49.05 Jala Mm hmm. 01:55:49.56 Jack um And that's definitely possible for people. um 01:55:52.67 Jala Hmm hmm. 01:55:54.94 Jack Yeah, it's it's a the the effects are broad and you know I just hope that people are able to make the most of it you know in all the ways that that exists currently. And luckily, like there are people out there and you know I don't necessarily place a super high value on social media influencers and things like that. but like, on occasion, I'll come across these things on, you know, my social media feed saying, Hey, did you know this about ADHD? And it'll be like, No, I did not know this. And then I will go read a little bit more about it and try to find something a little more official. But, um you know, 01:56:38.45 Jack if if you have If you have the tools, try to use them as best you can because there are ways that you can impact your life for for the better if you have access to them. and you know I know not all people do, but if you do, I encourage you to use them. 01:56:55.25 Jala Right. That's so important to do if you have the capacity to do that. So so um from here, I want to transition into talking about some frustrating experiences that you've had um associated with your particular flavor of neurodivergence. And I want to talk about this so that people listening can understand some of the things that are really struggles right for folks on on the the neurodiverse spectrum somewhere. so um With that in mind, Mike, do you have anything you want to talk about other than your your frustration with the the stuff in the bathroom, which I feel you? 01:57:38.51 Michael Prehn Yeah. Um, you know, a lot of the, uh, kind of challenges related to, uh, my autism, uh, comes from work and I've, I've talked about it a little bit so far, but, um, just to give some context, I'm working for a company right now that's kind of going from a small company to a medium sized company. 01:57:57.41 Jack Hmm. 01:57:58.00 Michael Prehn And, uh, one of the side effects of that is that many of my coworkers are still sort of in the mom and pop, uh, operation mindset. So they're very and I live in the south in case you can't tell from my voice. So as a result um You know a lot of them prefer old school communication like their trying to do things verbally or with pen and paper or any of those number of things. And ah that is very much not my preferred method of handling things because we've talked about all of my test management stuff that I like to do. So there is a little bit of a square peg trying to go into the round hole of my brain that happens with that. 01:58:41.32 Michael Prehn and a lack of understanding from my co-workers about why that kind of thing is important to me. um so ah you know To cite specifics, there is a workgroup leader that's kind of adjacent to me, and he's very much a pen and paper type person, talks to everybody rather than send emails, things of that nature. and um My role in that company is involved in his department, but also touches the other nine departments of the company. 01:59:14.54 Michael Prehn And because he's living in a very pen and paper focused kind of world, he doesn't see the stuff that's outside of his department because he's not using that visibility that digital tools can give you. 01:59:27.28 Jala Mhmm. 01:59:28.13 Michael Prehn so he's having difficulty understanding why when you know he comes in and says like hey we need to do this thing tomorrow i'm like well i'm booked like and i'm already already spoken for it for the entire week like i can't do that ah well we really need to do this tomorrow and it's just that's where some frustration comes in for me because ah 01:59:33.48 Jala Mhmm. 01:59:50.57 Michael Prehn We're looking at the world through very two different lenses and that is where you're going to have communication problems between someone who is ah neurotypical and someone who is neurodivergent. 02:00:02.11 Jack Mm hmm. 02:00:02.42 Jala Right. 02:00:04.06 Michael Prehn Sweet but heads about that kind of stuff. Every once in a while it pops up in personal life, not very common, ah though generally it's just sort of a workplace thing. 02:00:12.69 Jala Gotcha. So I do need to ask you, it's a very important question. Who is our furry co-host? 02:00:21.07 Michael Prehn I am so sorry. 02:00:22.01 Jala No, we love podcast pets. 02:00:22.28 Michael Prehn You just got back from the bed. 02:00:24.17 Jala Please tell me, please tell me more. 02:00:26.39 Michael Prehn So that that is that is Max, who those, yep, those of y'all who are on the Jollotron discord know Max. 02:00:28.06 Jala Ah, yes. 02:00:34.38 Michael Prehn He's my orange three-legged cat. 02:00:34.48 Jack Haha. 02:00:36.33 Jala isn it 02:00:37.15 Michael Prehn He is very loud, and there's no way to handle it well, because if he's in the room, he's making noise. 02:00:40.21 Jala no 02:00:43.29 Michael Prehn And if he's out of the room, which is where he is now, ah I mean, he's got a set of lungs on him, as you can tell. so 02:00:51.19 Jala No, we we we love the podcast pets. 02:00:52.01 Michael Prehn I think, uh, yeah, that's, that's max. 02:00:53.43 Jala There is no problem with that. I just wanted to introduce our our fellow co-host who has opinions about your work. 02:01:00.18 Michael Prehn He's the yeller. When you wake up in the morning, he's going to yell at you. Whenever you go to work, he's going to yell at you. When you get back from work, he's going to yell at you. That's max. He, when he runs across the house, he makes like running noises and not like the noises of running. Like he goes like, boom or roll wherever whenever he's running. yeah 02:01:21.06 Jala That is absolutely the best thing ever. 02:01:22.10 Michael Prehn so 02:01:24.01 Jala So yeah, at least ah you can say that Max is very consistent, which that's good. That's good for neurodiverse people. So there you go. You've got a consistent chat. 02:01:31.53 Michael Prehn Yes, exactly we know exactly yeah we know exactly what we're getting with Max. 02:01:31.76 Jack That's good. 02:01:36.49 Michael Prehn That's for sure. 02:01:36.94 Jala Absolutely. So um other than that, did you have another one or or should I toss it over to Jack? 02:01:43.66 Michael Prehn I'm being kind of vague intentionally because I don't want to embroil anything, you know workplace gossip stuff, but just yeah that that is the general trajectory that some of the frustration comes through in my life. 02:01:44.75 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:01:54.92 Jala Right. Right. Understand. So Jack, how about you? What's something that's pretty frustrating for you? 02:02:01.08 Jack Uh, the biggest, the biggest frustration with being a person with ADHD is kind of that when, when you have a physical disability, um, you know, or mental disability, society doesn't meet you halfway. You are expected to come back and. you know, be on their side of the street. Uh, we talked about playing in traffic earlier. Um, the, the main, the main issue with, to me, with having, with having this is that it does all of these things to me, but you know, ever since I was diagnosed and and it started with my parents, it was seen as a responsibility. Like it was this extra kid that I sort of need to take care of. 02:02:55.95 Jack And I need to maintain by taking a pill here every day. And obviously that's small and it starts small with trying to see what a medication is going to do. um But it becomes this thing that you have to manage and. you're expected to manage it kind of behind closed doors and expected to express normally to people when you interact with them and kind of not not really let this be a visible thing. 02:03:32.59 Jack um And it's just kind of an extra it's an extra responsibility every day to just, 02:03:33.11 Jala Right. 02:03:40.90 Jack know that part of my treatment, as we would call it, is arranging things in my bathroom in a certain way. It is arranging things in the kitchen a certain way when I when i have the time and I'm able and I'm interested it's always arranging things at work in a specific way, because otherwise that's that's a lost day. um you know And failing on that level tends to have social consequences, um whether it's my family, because I forgot that we were, you know the time that we were going to 02:04:18.98 Jack meet for dinner or my partner because I forgot a chore or my boss because something on the task list didn't get done. um You know, a lot of that is just kind of seen as an objective failure when these things happen. So, you know, man, continuing to manage things in the background becomes more and more kind of mentally and spiritually taxing. 02:04:45.11 Jala Right. So that is um so we we've talked about spoon theory, especially on the disability episode, but we've we've mentioned it ever since as well. 02:04:52.18 Jack Yes. 02:04:55.41 Jala But yeah, the spoon theory is that each person has a certain number of spoons that they have by default when they wake up, and different tasks will cost different numbers of spoons for different individuals. So for someone who is non-disabled and also neurotypical, getting up and going about, you know, getting ready for your work day and then going to work and doing all these other things is not going to be nearly as draining as someone who's in a wheelchair trying to get up out of bed and get ready for their day, or someone who is neurodiverse in some way, shape or form, having to keep on task at work or do whatever that is that has to be done. 02:05:25.27 Jack Right. 02:05:34.18 Jala And remember all of these different things and all the other things that people assume that you can do. And so, you know, like each of these things take spoons. And so when you are a neurodiverse person or someone who is you know like ah the neurominority or you are the physically disabled person or what have you, you know you are automatically spending more spoons and you have and oftentimes you also have fewer spoons than someone who is non-disabled or not neuro you know not ah neurodivergent in some way. 02:06:11.07 Jala So you know in that way, it's like ah people don't um really consider that extra cost that comes in with the masking and the the attempts to try to handle things, you know being aware of your own BS. and dealing with it behind the scenes and all of these other things that you have to do. 02:06:30.98 Michael Prehn you 02:06:35.28 Jala And all of those things are extremely tasking. It makes social situations tasking. It makes work even more tasking. It makes everything, you know every interaction that you have, more taxing. And um you know like being cognizant of that and understanding if you know ah someone forgets a thing is, is you know, or or what have you, like whatever the situation is, whatever, whatever kind of thing comes up, you know, understanding and being patient with that and giving grace is really important. And again, kind of like understanding and meeting people where they're at, but whatever that means, you know, is so important. 02:07:14.67 Jala So, um, so yeah, how about a positive experience this time? 02:07:16.08 Jack Mmhmm. 02:07:19.69 Jala Is there anything that the positive, and we don't need to make this into like, uh, my thing is a super power kind of situation. I just mean like, what, you know, uh, was there a situation where you had understanding or was there a situation where you found that something actually ended up helping you in a way or whatever, like whatever kind of a positive situation you can positive spin, however you take it, um, Mike. 02:07:45.34 Michael Prehn Yeah. So I do think that with that preference for certain forms of communication, uh, I lend myself pretty well to organizational tasks just because that is the kind of water as women. So it's helped me at my job because I work in a highly technical field. And so that like desire to be very organized has served me well professionally, but, um, You know, beyond that, uh, one of the wonderful things about, uh, my family is that they're basically understanding of everyone from any walk of life. And like I mentioned before, uh, kind of realizing that I'm an autistic person was a recent development and it really wasn't a big deal for anybody in my family. It was great. Like I, you know, I told my mom and she, her response was essentially, 02:08:40.60 Michael Prehn Oh, yeah, I know. She's like, I don't really want to like, put that label on you ah if you didn't want it. But like, I, you know, I could see it ah kind of thing. 02:08:51.99 Jala Mm hmm. 02:08:52.84 Michael Prehn And so that was fortunately a barrier. I didn't have to overcome like a lot of people who are neurodivergent that might suffer stigma from friends and family. ah My family's been very accepting but at Brittany to I mean she totally understands and gets it and there's no shade there She's aware of the ways that my brain is wired differently and works around them as much as she can Yep, 02:09:16.65 Jala And she sat in the bathroom with you and labeled every single item and told you all about them individually for however long that took. 02:09:21.36 Jack Ha 02:09:25.44 Michael Prehn we went through 02:09:25.82 Jala Yeah. Yeah. 02:09:27.82 Michael Prehn But the whole dictionary, the MSDS sheet, it's hanging on the wall like we've got the whole kit and caboodle. 02:09:28.58 Jack ha ha ha. 02:09:30.47 Jala Right. 02:09:33.97 Jala Right, right. so um But yeah, then too, at work, I will also say your preference for having written communication also covers your ass in case of anything going wrong or needing to refer back to anything you already have it in writing, which is fantastic. 02:09:45.04 Michael Prehn I don't know. 02:09:48.81 Jala ah you know So I work, i've I've not made this a secret, but ah my day job, I work in insurance and I'm on the underwriting side. And um so everything is document, document, document. I have retail agents who try to call me and do things on the phone and I'm like, nope, I can't do that. I have to have it in writing, have to document my file. There's no way I'm going to do that. that once you send it to me in writing. so um you know My job by its very nature requires that. so You ah would fit in well with something minutiae like that with all the little minutiae that you need to have in those moving parts, but you already have so many moving parts at your own job that you deal with. I don't even know. 02:10:29.45 Michael Prehn Yeah. And information technology, it's helpful because you need to be detail oriented. You hit the wrong button and you could bring down a whole network. So having that kind of a very, very tuned in, uh, methodical approach to things, it's, it made this job second nature to me, even though I don't have any formal training with it. 02:10:49.79 Jala That's awesome. So Jack, how about you? Do you have any positive stories that you'd like to share? 02:10:55.83 Jack Um, well, first and foremost, I, I, I always have to give a big shout out to my wife because she is immensely patient with me and she is willing to learn these things and learn how they work. And, ah you know, I've been in several relationships where, I mean, including one with someone who also had ADHD that was not understanding of these things, which. I mean, the irony of that can could fill several other podcasts. 02:11:31.09 Jack But um the the way that she has kind of worked with me on both helping me manage and understanding what I need to manage is I i couldn't i couldn't be luckier than I am to have a partner who is this supportive. 02:11:31.27 Jala Mm hmm. 02:11:51.98 Jack um And that's the most important thing. um it's and Secondly, um you know one of the things that I think is a little more understated in ADHD is how easy it is to become angry. 02:12:10.60 Jala Mmhmm. 02:12:10.87 Jack um and The way that you can have frequent mood swings um you know, through both medication therapy and just honestly life experience. Like that is one thing that is that I've nearly eliminated from life. 02:12:28.02 Jala Mmhmm. 02:12:29.64 Jack Um, you know, I am quick to get hot, but, uh, more so than ever, I am quicker to cool down. it's And that is something I'm very grateful for because, you know, I don't think I would necessarily have the the supportive partner that I have if that were not the case. 02:12:49.65 Jala Mm hmm. 02:12:50.80 Jack And I mean, there are a number of other successes i've I've gotten to a point in my professional life where I mean, I'm a supervisor now, which I i never in my wildest dreams 10 years ago thought that would be possible for me. 02:13:02.41 Jala Mm hmm. 02:13:05.47 Jack aye And now I'm able to subject everyone else to my shit. 02:13:07.93 Jala Yes. 02:13:13.31 Jack But now, but now like the management of my, I basically have five other people to help me manage my problems and issues coming to this at work. And, you know, they don't know they're doing it and don't tell them, please. 02:13:28.61 Jala Yeah. 02:13:31.14 Jack But you know, the ability to delegate the things that I know I would fall off of so easily when that's, you know, and that's their job is, is pretty fantastic. I'll be honest. 02:13:46.02 Jala Awesome. So, yeah, we've already talked a little bit about ah what y'all's relationships to your neurotype are like, um you know, Mike, you didn't know for a long time, and you thought it was something else over there. Then you were like, Oh, actually, it me, it me, and all of that. 02:14:03.71 Michael Prehn Mmhmm. 02:14:03.99 Jala um And Jack, I don't know, what what do you feel? like you already ah so so Mike said, i want to fully I want to get a diagnosis to fully embrace it and then you know like be able to to throw that out there and and whatnot. But then, um Jack, like you don't want to put it out there because ah you don't want to just have that label attached and have that be like the thing that people think about when they're thinking about you and all of that. so um 02:14:29.80 Jack Yeah, and it's tough because people people should be more aware that these things exist but at the same time on a personal level it is hard for me to embrace being an advocate in that way, which I mean, is is a personal failing. I feel i feel like if i'm if if I want to be understood, then part of that is being out there and helping people understand. um But yeah, I mean, largely 02:15:03.36 Jack it's, I don't feel like it's part of my identity. I'm so many other things. 02:15:07.38 Jala Mm hmm. 02:15:08.13 Jack Um, and that's certainly not what I want to be. I know that sometimes I am that person even to my partner and, and that's hard, and that's hard to know. So, you know, being, being this particular neurotype is, it's hard for me on a personal level, but at the same time, you know, I, I certainly wouldn't encourage other people to be, quiet about it if you know that you're able to get that kind of support network, whether it's at work, at home, wherever. you know it you know and Embrace who you are as much as you feel that you are able. 02:15:51.51 Jala Right. And, you know, as much as I know that you ah said that, you know, you feel it's a personal failure, that you're not out there being like the the champion advocate and all of that, ah the world goes around because it takes all types of people and all different people live their life and go about things in the way that is best for them And sometimes not the way that's best for them, but um ideally the way that is best for them. ah you know And that's going to look different for each person. So you need advocates, but you also need the people who are just you know chugging along, doing their thing. 02:16:25.11 Jala And you know it takes all kinds of people to make the world go round. And there isn't like a one size fits all for anything. 02:16:30.15 Jack That is true. 02:16:34.54 Michael Prehn Yeah, and it's worth mentioning that if you do push yourself too far outside of your comfort zone and overextend, you might not do a great job of being an advocate. 02:16:44.53 Jala Right. 02:16:45.54 Michael Prehn ah Because you know, you could end up misrepresenting yourself or even worse other people, at which point you wouldn't be doing anybody any good. 02:16:45.60 Jack Right. 02:16:54.55 Michael Prehn So I do think it is one of those things where it's like you Put yourself out there to the degree that you're able to do so and you just have to be kind of cognizant about when you can push the envelope envelope a little bit more for me you know i don't think i need to pull my punches as much with my diagnosis because. 02:17:01.34 Jala Right. 02:17:07.89 Jack Mm hmm. 02:17:14.54 Michael Prehn My primary concern is work, but if we're going to be honest, they already think I'm weird. So it's going to change their opinion too much. 02:17:23.97 Michael Prehn And I'm very blessed in that I have a position that for better or for worse, can't really be replaced. 02:17:31.20 Michael Prehn So it's not like work's going to haul off and fire me because they can't. 02:17:33.36 Jala Mmhmm. 02:17:35.61 Michael Prehn So I feel like I could leverage that a little bit better in my life. 02:17:35.93 Jala Right. 02:17:40.06 Jala Right. Right. And I mean, you know, whatever works for you, different strokes for different folks. And also is important to keep in mind that you don't have to be the hardcore advocate every day. If you decide you have a lot of energy that one day and you have all the spoons for it and you want to do it, go for it. But, you know, you don't have to consistently be that person. You can take your time to take a breather as well. So, you know, like that's also something to keep in mind. 02:18:03.33 Michael Prehn yeah 02:18:06.91 Michael Prehn Mind your spoons, it's very important. 02:18:07.48 Jala Right? Absolutely. So um what are some challenges that y'all have faced that you feel were exacerbated by your neurotype? 02:18:16.56 Jack Heh. 02:18:17.95 Jala So what what were situations where it's like this thing that you had to deal with was even harder because of the kind of ah brain wiring you've got? 02:18:29.58 Michael Prehn I think definitely for me, dating was probably pretty tricky. 02:18:32.26 Jala Yeah. yeah 02:18:34.54 Michael Prehn and you know i'm I'm married now and like dating's not really much of a thing in my life currently. so I think it's one of those things where it was probably dragging me down a bit in that arena ah and made worse by the fact that I was unaware of it, so I wasn't dealing with it. but You know, uh, one of the things that's part and parcel with a lot of forms of Dura divergence is having like a special interest, like listening to the same five songs over and over again on Spotify, which is a thing that I do to this day. Uh, that kind of thing doesn't super play well with especially young people dating because they, they. 02:19:14.53 Michael Prehn Judge other people by how cool they are whatever that means that nebulous term means Yeah Yeah, it is for real or and acting like the crowd and fitting in and stuff that's always huge especially during adolescence and uh, I think that me being a little bit out of step with a lot of my um other people in high school probably made that more difficult than it needed to be 02:19:17.70 Jala Mmhmm. 02:19:19.21 Jack yeah Media consumption is so much more important to younger people. 02:19:43.07 Jala Gotcha. Yeah, for sure. And I have to ask this question. So those five songs, have they always been the same five songs or have they changed over time? 02:19:55.16 Michael Prehn Oh no, it changes all the time. 02:19:56.07 Jala Okay. 02:19:56.87 Michael Prehn Usually what it is is like, if I hear a song that I like, like something new gets recommended to me or whatever, then that's going to be on the, the five songs playlist forever. There are some, uh, mainstays that come back around pretty frequently. Like I might rediscover an old favorite. But it's it's a rotating cast generally, but a lot of my playlists on Spotify are very short and I rework them frequently because I i don't know why. 02:20:27.35 Michael Prehn It feels good to hear the same familiar favorites repeatedly. 02:20:31.15 Jala I have um different, oh, we've got our co-host back. I've got a few different playlists that I have, but I have, okay, in my music library, I have something over to the tune of like 40,000 songs. um in my digital library. So I listen to a lot of different types of music, but also if I don't have it on just like a general shuffle through literally everything, then I'm listening to my little playlist. But then what I'll do sometimes is I will skip through this playlist of, it might be like a hundred songs because it's like a long, long workout mix that I listen to regularly. But then like I'll skip through or I'll like go specifically and pick out the specific songs that I want to listen to. And it's usually the same song. 02:21:17.34 Jala All the time, or I'll just put one song on repeat. And then when I'm sick of that one, after I've listened to it about 50 times in a row, then I'll switch it to the next song and then I'll listen to that one song on repeat forever. So um that's how I i roll. 02:21:33.50 Jala So Jack, ah how about you? ah What are some challenges or a challenge that you have faced that you feel was exacerbated by your neurotype 02:21:42.53 Jack I mean, there there are a lot of them, but I think the one that probably deserves underscoring the most was, you know, coming out of high school with no plan really to go to college, i just the number of jobs that I went through. um and just couldn't couldn't stay on task when there had issues with ah you know even going sometimes, um lost lost a job specifically because I just stopped going and I just couldn't do it anymore. 02:22:13.67 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:22:19.16 Jack um And you know not having that same sort of drive that other people have to, just do that daily grind that you need to do because of the society that we live in. 02:22:34.72 Jala Mmhmm. 02:22:35.00 Jack And I feel like that it that was definitely exacerbated by the fact that when I was at these jobs, I was miserable. um And it took it took a lot of false starts for me to really get going in my quote unquote adult life where work was related. I mean, when I did, It wasn't a whole lot more enjoyable, but I also, you know, I had, I had stakes and, you know, I had, I had partners. 02:23:09.99 Jack I had, you know, other concerns and, you know, being, just being there, doing it for myself didn't, didn't work for me at first. So I think that was the biggest thing. 02:23:18.89 Jala Yeah, 02:23:22.00 Jala yeah that's an especially difficult time of life to where everybody's trying to figure out their shit, but then you've got these extra things that feel stacked against you when you're trying to ah find your way in the world. 02:23:36.14 Michael Prehn It's kind of akin to the experiences that I had in my young schooling of they're kind of trying to do a one size fits all approach because that's public schooling in America, or at least that's my experience of it. And jobs are very much the same way. They're structured ah predominantly over the majority of people, the lowest common denominator. So people who have neurodivergence, they're not really designed to fit well into those systems. And that's, you have those problems. 02:24:03.23 Jack Right, they're not co-worker coded. Mhmm. Mhmm. 02:24:05.75 Jala yeah 02:24:06.36 Michael Prehn Yeah, yeah, exactly right. 02:24:09.57 Jala Right. So we're about to the time like of of all the different questions and stuff that I had. So I have one more question for y'all and then I'll open it up to see if you have any other wrap up thoughts. So if you could give one piece of advice about your neurotype and how to best engage with you in particular, since you know you're you're talking from your own experience here, what would that piece of advice be? I'll throw the mic first. 02:24:37.86 Michael Prehn I can. 02:24:38.12 Jala Yeah. Go. 02:24:39.43 Michael Prehn Okay. Yep. Um, so for dealing with me, you know, uh, boundaries is, uh, are important for everybody. But I think in a lot of cases for autistic people, even more so because they have those kinds of hot buttons that can make something sting worse than it might otherwise. So. uh similar to a relationship like jello was talking about Communication is so so important and a lot of autistic people are aware of their own bullshit keeps coming up, right? 02:25:12.48 Jack Hehehe. 02:25:13.16 Michael Prehn And so you can ask them frankly like hey What's some stuff that might not make your day better? That I can know to try to avoid if at all possible um you know I didn't mention this earlier, but like one of the things that comes with my flavor of autism is misophonia, ah which for people who aren't familiar with the term means certain sound effects are really greeting to me, ah unusually so. 02:25:37.07 Jala Mm. 02:25:39.92 Michael Prehn So that might be the kind of thing that if someone asks me, if I mentioned it to them, like, Hey, I have this thing. Uh, there's this one sound effect that really just drives me nuts. And in my case, it's the fully sound of soda pouring over ice that they use in commercials. 02:25:55.42 Michael Prehn I don't know why it's always driven me nuts. I can't deal with it. I shut the TV off whenever it comes on or I know it's coming. So, uh, 02:26:02.72 Jala Ooh, ooh. Mine would be like even the, even talking about it makes me like shudder because it gets me all tight and tensed up. 02:26:06.13 Jack Oof. 02:26:11.76 Jala The fork, running a fork along teeth. 02:26:12.59 Michael Prehn yeah 02:26:13.66 Jala I hate that shinging noise. Oh, I hate it. 02:26:15.79 Michael Prehn Oh, sure. 02:26:16.58 Jala I hate it. 02:26:16.75 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:26:17.02 Jala I hate it. I hate it so much. All right. 02:26:19.56 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:26:19.62 Jala Anyway, sorry. 02:26:20.97 Michael Prehn So, and no, it's okay. It's a good point. And that kind of brings me to my, my overarching thought and my piece of advice beyond just communication is like, if you should take anything away from this podcast episode, I think that one of the things central messages is you probably have more in common with neurodiverse ah people than you think, if you're neurotypical and vice versa. And even with each other, like not everyone who has autism has ADHD or vice versa, but there's a lot of common experiences there that we can use to connect with each other. 02:26:52.93 Jack Okay. 02:26:56.17 Michael Prehn And I think that that's important to realize that like people who are neurodivergent. It's they're not another species for the most part. They're just humans like anybody else. Uh, might be 5% a little bit wired different, but it's not 95%. So, uh, make those connections. Um, you know, if you're someone who's neurodivergent, try to understand the neurotypical people and the commonalities you might have with them. And if you're neurotypical and you're listening to this, you know, we don't bite, it just saw to us. 02:27:27.23 Jala Some of you do. 02:27:29.77 Michael Prehn well If they ask politely, I do. I'm not a monster, but we have more in common than we're different, I guess is my message. 02:27:39.28 Jala Right, right. That's a great one. So Jack, how about you? um If anybody out there listening wants to interact with a Jack, what what is a good way to interact with a Jack? What's a good tip? 02:27:54.74 Jack I mean, I think Mike put put it really well, and I'm honestly not sure what else I have to offer. you know we We've got more in common with people than we do not. And the ways that neurodiverse people and neurodivergent people act in public are not I mean, don't don't take it personally, if you're able, I think it's important. um You know, if if I interrupt you, i I will apologize, because I know that that's something that I do on a fairly regular basis. And, you know, I try to be 02:28:40.25 Jack very conscious of that. so you know Understand that when you interact with a neurodivergent person and they do something that internally, they they probably know at this point what is happening and you know understand that everybody's going through a process with this. 02:29:00.99 Jala Right. One thing that I would add is if you are a neurotypical person or even another neurodivergent person who is talking to somebody else who has a different neurotype than you, and you think in your mind, you're you're thinking a thing about you know whatever habits or or things that this this person is doing. And then you pop off and you say a thing, understand that you're not the first person to pop off and say a thing to this person. And um you knowd like you need to be considerate and cognizant and mindful of that. um you know ah as As we've already said, folks who are neurodivergent tend to have a tendency towards 02:29:43.20 Jala this deep self-criticism and ah having a history of people telling them a thing and separating them out from other people and like kind of pointing a finger and things like that. And they are also very sensitive to these kinds of criticism that are being levied on them. So keep that in mind when you're interacting and you know try to find more constructive, here's the thing, find a constructive way to communicate with each other. 02:30:03.96 Michael Prehn right 02:30:11.70 Jack Mm hmm. 02:30:12.64 Jala And that might be those frank questions, you know, so. 02:30:13.12 Jack Yeah. 02:30:17.03 Jack Right. And, ah you know, on on a lighter note of something you said, like, if you want to react in a particular way to somebody or call out the behavior, just rate it on a scale of one to 10 in your head on how original you think it is to comment on somebody's behavior in that particular way. And the lower the score is, the more I've heard it, I promise you. 02:30:40.31 Jala Right, right. 02:30:41.73 Michael Prehn Yeah. 02:30:42.27 Jala It's kind of like um when people see my name Jolla and then they have to make a joke about Jolla or Jolla Penos or something, you know or whatever. 02:30:49.10 Jack oh boy 02:30:53.81 Jala like um you're You're not original. 02:30:54.37 Michael Prehn Yeah, sorry. 02:30:56.93 Jala You're not original. I've heard it already. It's not funny. It's still not funny. you know So yeah. So um do we have any other wrap up thoughts or are we already mic dropping out of here? 02:31:10.26 Jala We're going to drop Mike and run away. 02:31:12.67 Michael Prehn Please don't drop me. I'm very fragile. 02:31:14.60 Jala Right, right. 02:31:15.44 Jack boy. 02:31:15.69 Michael Prehn My bones are bad. 02:31:16.09 Jala Right, right. No, we would never do that. Put you in a blanket and feed you cookies. So cool. 02:31:21.93 Michael Prehn Oh, please. 02:31:22.06 Jack Aww. 02:31:24.16 Jala What's your favorite kind of cookie? Now we have to know. 02:31:27.92 Michael Prehn Uh, sugar cookie. 02:31:28.19 Jala Ooh, sugar cookies are a good mainstay. Jack, how about you? what what Hey, basic is great. 02:31:32.43 Michael Prehn I know it's basic, but I like it. 02:31:34.85 Jala It works right. It's consistent. 02:31:37.51 Jack ah as As also a diabetic, that's rough, but ah it's not it's okay. 02:31:40.10 Jala Oh, sorry. 02:31:41.32 Michael Prehn Oh. 02:31:43.48 Jack ah Oreos, probably. 02:31:45.42 Jala Awesome, awesome. So yes, so ah this is the end of our show here. So can you guys be found on the internet anywhere? Or are you just ah sequestered to the special secret communications areas that I mentioned at the top of the episode, Jala-chan's Place Discord and the Duckfeed Slack. 02:32:07.96 Michael Prehn Um, I am on Bluesky. Uh, my handle is uh, Michael Prehn, uh, first name and last dot blue sky dot social. Um, I mostly, uh, post photos of Max who you heard on this episode. Uh, my other cat Norbie, food that I cook and complain about workers rights in the US. So if that sounds like a good idea to you, you can follow me there. I have a recipe website that's in the works, but is still very early, so I don't even have a name for it yet. 02:32:38.05 Michael Prehn But maybe in the far-flung future, it'll be out there somewhere. 02:32:40.88 Jala I'll be looking forward to that. And Jack, how about you? Are you on the internet somewhere? 02:32:46.00 Jack I mean, I'm also on Bluesky at Chickenriggies. That's chicken, R-I-G-G-I-E-S, all one word, if you want to follow me. i I always mean to start posting there. i I love to play video games and I love to talk about them, but boy, finding the time to throw my thoughts out into the void on top of everything else I have to do is daunting, so. 02:33:09.50 Jala Yeah, you can just trail off right there. You don't even have to finish the sentence. We get it. We get it for sure. ah Yes, ah but sometime you will be playing a game and putting some thoughts out there because we have we're going to. 02:33:22.28 Jack I'm playing so many games all the time. 02:33:24.71 Jala Yeah, but I mean, like eventually you're going to be back on the show to talk about a video game. We threw it out there for 2025, so. 02:33:31.51 Jack Oh, that's right! 02:33:32.37 Jala You forgot, but that's OK, because I have it on a list. 02:33:34.58 Jack yeah it was it was Yeah, I even remember what game it was. 02:33:37.60 Jala Yeah, awesome. 02:33:37.77 Jack Excellent. 02:33:38.86 Jala Awesome. And Mike, you too, you will be on one probably next year, depending upon your schedule, because your schedule is more difficult than my schedule somehow. but um 02:33:48.40 Michael Prehn Yeah, god, god willing on the creek don't rise it's going to be less not slash here, but we'll see how it goes 02:33:53.04 Jala I am so glad you put some kind of Southernism in there because if you didn't by the end of the episode, I would have been sad. 02:33:59.29 Michael Prehn yeah You gotta you gotta to do it to him. 02:34:02.46 Jala Absolutely. 02:34:02.54 Michael Prehn You do. 02:34:03.85 Jala So yeah, as for me, you can find me anywhere I may be found at Jalachan, including Jalachan.place where you found this episode and all of the others. So until next time, take care of yourself and remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]