Hello. I'm Isabelle, sheherhers.

And, I'm David, hehimhis.

And, we're two therapists with ADHD who sit down to have some chats about ADHD. We can't promise we'll stay on topic or be professional or even remotely mature, but we can promise that you'll end up looking at you or your loved one's beautiful neurodivergent brain in a shiny new way. This is not a therapy session. This is something shiny.

I love it. Do you like it? That's amazing. And can this just be the intro? You saying that and me freaking out about how amazing it is?

Yeah. Can I you tapping your voice? That could be that could be our first intro. So without further ado, welcome to Something Shiny. I'm David.

Okay. So this is making me think about it's interesting because, I think about how and, again, this could this could connect across, you know, I think it crosses across a lot of lines. Right? Like privilege and gender and and race and class and all the things. Right?

Because I'm thinking about how a piece of what sort of felt like it automatically qualified kids in my school to be cool was being wealthier. They had access to at the time, it was Abercrombie and Fitch. I don't know if y'all were of

that generation.

Oh, yeah. Right.

But those were relatively expensive clothes, and you had to go

to the

mall. And, like, I I we shopped at the Marshalls in the North you know, I don't think North America existed yet. Like, we shopped at the bargain stores. They did not sell Abercrombie and Fitch to the bar. You know, like like like, there was a piece of you need to, like, almost, like, be able to buy your way in to how you're perceived to then have the substance to back it up.

Does that make sense? And I just think about how a lot of times the kids who were targeted for bullies were also the kids who, like, also were struggling with a lot of trauma at home likely, right, or who had a lot of, or who were, like like, living on the poverty line. Right? And who couldn't necessarily afford certain things, x y z. Right?

At least that was in in my very, admittedly, very whitewashed suburban Chicago environment. Right? So I'm speaking just to this one environment knowing it's very different in all these different places. So I guess, David, like, I'm kinda like, yes, anding or maybe yes, budding. Does that make sense?

Like, yeah, I think a piece of it is, you know, kind of faking it till you make it. But I think about how, like, a huge piece of it is performance and how people who are able to perform and mask more effectively are rewarded. And I still see that today, especially among adults. Like, I see it in my clients. Like, those clients who are, like, let's say, high masking on the autism spectrum have a very different experience of the professional world than those who might be very, you know, like like, adaptive, but who really struggle with aspects of masking.

Like, do you know what I I'm trying to get at something here. That's like like, there's something that sometimes we have a privilege in our ability to, like, to be able to blend in and to read social cues or to code things or to be able to perceive what the cool thing is. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I I know.

Kid who can pick up what's cool is at an advantage to the kid who has no clue what cool like, like, what is

cool. Right.

Does that make any sense?

I think it's maybe if I'm summarizing, it's our ability to be validated by the neurotypical world. Right? Like Yes.

You know? Thank you. Oh, gosh.

And so it's like, are we are you are you embraced by the neurotypical world? Are you able to fit in into whatever that environment is, which can constantly be evolving and changing? Or and if you feel like you can't, there there's a there's a few different paths. You'd be you know, there's, you know, there's the loneliness. Like, there like, I think about the the empathy I have for the bullies now.

You know? Right? Like, the as an adult, you see the bullies so differently. A lot of the bullies now that I look back on were the LD kids or the MD kids at the time. You know, and who's who are dealing with loneliness and not masking well or not fitting in well.

And this was their the way of the way of kind of fitting in in some kind of way or finding a role for them within the school community. I read a, statistic, the other day in, Attitude magazine that 60%, sorry, sixty percent of people with ADHD say that they mask on a regular basis, and it was forty three percent, feel that there's stigma and they have loneliness associated with their neurodiversity. And I thought that was just kind of a

Oh my god.

A fascinating component of it. There's this loneliness element to the lived experience unless you're able to be validated by the neurotypical space. And if you're not, you probably just rebel against it completely.

Yeah. Like, if you, you know, if you're gonna reject me, I'm gonna reject you first. This is not a can't. This is a won't. Right?

Like, I I'm deciding. Right? Like, maybe a little bit.

Yeah.

But, yes, the trauma and the pain of, like I I something you just said, Marcus, was so sorry, David. I feel like you're you're ready to talk too.

I see the signals. I'm trying

so hard. But okay. Put it this way, though. There's also this but then there's, like, the pain of if you are high masking or you are accepted by the neurotypical world, what how little practice you may have at really sitting with who you are or, like, self identifying accurately or having a stable sense of self. Because I think about, like, something I think I've spent an inordinate amount of time doing is trying to figure out how to be in different social settings.

And I'll I'll admit. Right? Like, I we've already talked on the podcast, David, but, like, I'm I'm leaning a little more into the fact I likely am also on the autism spectrum. I'm a little more ADHD perhaps than I have even known. But there is a really distinct thing about the self you are to fit in that is not the same as, to me, that cool thing you were talking about.

Right? Like, that sense of, like, an authenticity and having self confidence and knowing who you are. It's like it's like you you kinda named it before. It's like the difference between, like, doing it in a healthy way or doing it to, you know, maybe more in a way to just, like, survive while also but it also comes at a cost if you don't have a place to does that, David, help

Martin?

I think it's hard to

know, you know I think it's very hard to know what parts of you are okay. And

and I think, like, when you're trying to blend into the neurodivergent world or neurotypical world, I should say, in your neurodivergent, you as well, you're kinda naming the ability to understand the variables around you to, like, understand the coolness and be able to play with it. That's a significant advantage around deciding how you're gonna mask or how you're gonna be able to move through, and not everyone has that ability. And for people that don't have that ability, you're talking about marginalized senses of self and just having to exist believing that they're less than.

Or believing that if the mask ever falls, I know this is true for me. Right? Like, there's a way I I I am terrified of revealing. Like, I'm okay saying, oh, I have ADHD. I'm running late.

But I'm not okay saying I have ADHD, and I screwed up the finances again, and so I can't afford the school bill today. That's a step too far. Right? Like, there there's like a there's a do you know do you know what I'm saying? There's like a there's still a management.

There's a lot maybe that's the word. There's like a lot of management around masking, and I think about coolness as a, again, it's like it's almost like the less you want it, the cooler you are. Like, the more the more chill like, the less the less you care, the again, I go back to the idea of being unaffected. Like, whether it's about the opinions of other people or, you know, the ways you're being perceived, it's like there's just, like, something about it that feels like it doesn't get all it isn't vulnerable. Yeah.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I hope But then I'm just confused. I'm confused as we're talking.

No. Well, one scared in my voice. This is building on that or maybe this is a slight tangent, but I would go back to, like, understanding how we define coolness beyond the, like, that unique person who just owns who they are. Right? Like, where does coolness come in terms of, like, the culture?

Right? And I think that, like, often it comes from celebrity. Right? That's the, like, the top down approach of, like, who are the coolest people on our society? Who do we wanna emulate?

Especially when you're a young person are often the celebrities. And when I was growing up as a kid, the only celebrities who were out about their neurodivergence, there was, like, two categories, it seemed. For the dyslexic type individuals, there was the movie stars. There was, like, the Tom Cruise or Landa Blooms, Keirin Eileen. They just happened to always be the most attractive movie stars.

Like, no shade, but if

Paul Giamatti wasn't talking about his dyslexia, you know, it was like

it would it would dyslexia, you know, it was like it was it was always acknowledged. He was also known for being really good looking. Right? Like, a little Yeah. Orlando Bloom was really known for being very handsome.

And then and but and, like, but also very out about his sex. I've seen him speak about it in person and and and online many times. And then when he came to Asperger's and autism, we used to use that word Asperger's, but a at the ASD community, it was people who were, like, savant like. Right? Who

Like Temple Grandin. Yes. That was my idol.

Right. Temple Grandin. For real.

They were Yeah.

They were, you know, they had they were superheroes. They, you know, they were Rain Man. They could count cards. They could do all these kinds of things. And that was our introduction in many ways to to the autism community.

And so I remember that message of being a young kid and being like, okay. So, like, if you're dyslexic, like, the way out of the the way to make it out is to be, like, either have hotness or, like, almost superhero brilliance. And those are and if you don't fit into one of those categories, you're not cool. We'll make

You're screwed. Okay. This this brings up the thing. Okay. We we were wonder about how deeply impactful the conversation I see.

One, I think social media or access to celebrities' real selves or at least a version of their real selves. Like, because growing up, it was the celebrities were over there, and you got very manufactured, like, branded PR stories. Right. And you had tabloids about the seedy underbelly, and they're like, what's really going on? But there wasn't a a way to feel like you're getting to see a more more three-dimensional side of a person.

Which is shifting.

Literally, there'd be like yeah. Which shifted. And so now you have people who every day are posting and describing, oh, I have postpartum depression. Oh, I I'm anxious. Oh, I'm depressed.

You know? Like, you have people, like, in a way unmasking a ton, like celebrities. Right? Like, people that are high profile, names are well known. You're right.

They're maybe very hot or very funny or, like, they have something about them. They're very cool. There's something about them that draws people in, but they're also being more actively, like, hey. I I like like, this their social emotional their emotional intelligence level is feels like a generational boost. Right?

Like, the way that, like, certain celebrities even talk about their mental health, you can tell that they've had re you know, they've been to therapy. They've, like, sat with this. They talk about the meds they're on. They talk about does that make sense? It's like it's it's there's something about modeling that unmasking and making that be in a way something valuable.

Like, that vulnerability has now become valuable social.

Well, it's social authenticity is is become to our earlier comments, is becoming what's cool. Right? So, like, you know, it's actually better for companies these days in social media and branding, like, and communications work to shoot from an iPhone, like, as opposed to, like, shooting from, like, some of the polished version because people wanna see the authentic video, you know, and they wanna see it in that regard. I think that, like, yes, celebrities are not as far removed, so we're getting more and more. So that's why I think the rapid one of the reasons for the rapid change in neurodiversity, especially in the last five years.

I mean, you go on TikTok, and people are getting a lot of information. I don't know if they're all getting all the right information, but they're getting information, which is different than what ten years ago when there was very little information. And I think that you're saying is that there's a an it's almost important for a celebrity to have a cause to be authentic in that regard as a part of their brands now. I'm sure it's a branding strategy to be cynical. It could be a branding strategy, or it's just a shift in the culture and how we own ourselves in so many different ways and how we weren't able to do that before.

Because the list of celebrities that I cited as a high schooler or whatever was short and a few. Now, you know, they're in our in our community. Now it's incredibly long, and they're telling their stories in very vastly different ways, which is redefining cool and authenticity.

Thank you so much for listening. If you ever had that thought where you think, hey.

I have nothing. Stop. Remember, you're so something's shiny.

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