Matt: Let's let's just see what happens.
Let's see, let's see where we land because it looks good so far anyway.
You know, Alison, this is what I'm considering the
Session Zero of this podcast.
Alison: I love it.
Matt: Right?
The Session Zero of ADHd20 because we're testing things out.
We're trying to introduce ourselves.
We're trying to understand the milieu, the campaign.
Alison: To that effect.
I don't know if you do, but I have a d20.
Ready to go.
Matt: Dang.
Alison: Should we have to like roll off for anything?
Matt: Oh boy.
Oh boy.
Pressure.
Alison: Not to put pressure…
Matt: No, I love it so much . Listen.
Oh, yeah, that's right there.
Cocked!
Um, there it is.
Yes.
Alison!
Gosh you know, are we going to get into what this podcast is about first?
Or are we going to start with introductions.
Alison: So here's what I propose.
I think you should give like the quick little elevator pitch, and
then let's have a roll off to see who goes first and introductions.
Matt: Gosh, you've already come up with a fun way and implemented it.
I love it.
Okay.
Alison: Let's go.
Matt: So.
Welcome to ADHd20.
It is a podcast that we're, you know, we're kind of gonna feel out.
And why are we going to sort of feel out what it is?
Well, the two of us both have ADHD and that's just kind of the way that we live.
But the idea came to me, number one, because I play Dungeons & Dragons.
My friend Alison plays Dungeons & Dragons.
And we work together and we both live with ADHD.
Which is a… just go look it up, man.
I mean, if you don't know what ADHD is.
You know, whatever, but, you know,
Alison: Yes.
Matt: We're gonna figure out how those two things, those two
great tastes tastes together.
How they combine.
I expect there will be talk some weeks about ADHD and then more about D&D.
You know, kind of, depending on how we're feeling.
And then of course having ADHD, we're going to probably you
know, also throw the script away.
And talk about whatever else.
Maybe.
Okay.
Alison: I want to point out that we do have a rough, emphasis
on rough, outline for today.
And like, I think we both have timers set to see how long
until those go out the window.
So get ready.
Matt: In fact, that has got to be a part of this podcast.
Where are you?
There it is.
Yeah.
So the Time Timer is a fantastic tool used for many things.
For me, I use it to have a very visual representation of time
going by, because one thing that.
That's what it sounds like
Alison: Ah, that's that noise?
I love it.
Matt: Time Timer has started, Alison.
We're going to try to keep these under an hour, the best we can.
So now we roll the d20 and find out who introduces, first.
Alison: Yeah.
Yeah, let's do it here.
It goes.
Matt: Yep.
Alison: Did not do well on that rolly.
Matt: Nope.
What'd you got.
Alison: I got three.
Matt: Oh, I got an eight.
Alison: Ah, you beat me.
Matt: Right.
Well, my name is Matt Bivins.
And, that's it.
My name is Matt.
I am part founder of a web development, digital design marketing shop
called Bivins Brothers Creative.
Where we work with Alison.
And let's see.
I have been in a rock band for one huge chunk of my life.
And I have provided captioning to live theater experiences
for a chunk of my life.
And I have had ADHD for a huge chunk of my life.
Most of it.
Maybe all of it.
And then D&D is a different thing because I'm not an obsessive kid.
I'm not as obsessive person, but man, one thing that kind of stuck
for a good solid five formative years was Dungeons & Dragons.
And I am old enough to remember.
The red box.
I don't think that's actually first edition.
It is first edition.
And then I, you know, I guess I left.
Let life scrub away my dreams and my, my enjoyment of fantasy.
I'm kidding.
I took a break.
I took a turn, took a turn.
I just, you know, put my energies elsewhere.
Until 2020, where the pandemic kind of forced us all inside.
And I had been talking, my brother and I had been talking about.
You know, getting back to D&D.
You know, it has had a resurgence for sure.
No one can deny that.
And so we kept talking about it and talking about it, talking about it,
Alison was sick of us talking about it.
But I had so many different things I was trying to do that.
I, I, I just never made it a priority.
And then the pandemic happened.
I was like, let's do it.
And I didn't really expect for it to be as all encompassing as it has become.
I know for sure you didn't expect it, that it would be, but for me it has
rekindled so many things, not just my childhood joys of creating worlds and
characters and, and, and situations.
And then running my brother, I only had one friend, my brother.
He has the only person I've played with.
Running Evan through these, these situations.
Not only did it bring me back to that, but you know, this is a performative joy
for me, it's a, it's the creative joy.
I've made really great friends doing this.
And I kind of imagine that moving forward in life, I will continue
to make great friends doing this.
It really solved almost every pandemic issue that I was experiencing, perfectly.
And that's and that's me, Matt Bivins.
Is that good?
I'm married.
I have dogs…
Alison: That was so lovely.
It was so good.
Wonderful.
Matt: Next.
Alison: I don't want to follow that up.
I wish I'd rolled higher.
Made you go second.
I mean, I knew all of those things about you and it was still an utter
delight to hear them professed out loud for the audience that we will surely
have from day one of this podcast.
Matt: Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, there's one, one more thing, which I think is relevant.
My ADHD type is the inattentive type as you can probably already
guess by my halting voice.
Thank you, Alison.
Next.
Alison: My name is Alison Kendrick.
I also go by AK.
You can call me any of these things or something else entirely.
I have the impulsive type of ADHD.
That will probably become even more and more apparent as we go on and
also a little inattentive to o.
Let's see.
So I first started working with Matt and Evan I don't know, at this point
five years ago, and now have just really shot my way into the business and made
them hang out with me every day for work and play, which is the best thing ever.
I consider Matt not only one of my best friends, but also like the ultimate
influencer in my life as I think you were actually one of, and we'll get to
this later in the episode, I'm sure.
But I think you were one of the first people that made
me realize that I have ADHD.
Many, many, many years ago.
And you're the one who got me into D&D really?
So these two big parts of my life, you, you influenced.
Matt: I'm already learning things.
Alison: Yeah.
Matt: Amazing.
Okay.
Alison: So very similar story to Matt's, you know?
Pandemic came.
I live alone with two wonderful cats, Maggie and Coney Bear.
And I'm an extrovert and a recovering actor, and suddenly
found myself alone in my house.
And in March 2020, needed a creative outlet.
And, you know, so a friend of mine had been trying to get together a
D&D you know, campaign for a while.
And all of her other friends were like, nah, too nerdy.
And I was like, yes, please.
And then like, once we needed something to do, I was like, hey friend, Jeff
is his name, do you want to do this?
And then, Hey, Matt and Evan, you guys keep talking about
wanting to do this again?
Are you in?
And now it's turned into this like all encompassing thing.
That is all I want to do, all I want to think about.
And so it's like, I did realize a couple of weeks ago and talking to somebody else
about this, I think Dungeons & Dragons might be my first hobby in the like
very traditional sense of the word.
And so it's interesting.
Yeah.
Like I've never really had a hobby before I have interests.
I have loves and passions.
But I don't have, you know, repetitious things that I do for the sheer joy of
both doing them and improving at them.
But I think there's a little bit of ADHD at play in there too.
Like maybe my ADHD is why I never had a hobby until I found the hobby
that really complimented my ADHD.
Right.
It's weird.
Matt: That's that's really?
Yeah.
Sorry, we can get into that.
I want you to finish your story, but that is fascinating because
I feel like I only have hobbies.
Alison: I don't and I never have, and it's really funny because I, I come from
this very crafty, very artful family who… They're very good at things with physical
outputs, like all of my grandmothers and all of my, all two of my grandmothers,
but, both of my grandmothers, my mom.
My aunts.
You know, they, they my grandfather.
They all have these hobbies.
Like my grandfather did stained glass and my mom and
grandma's knitted and crocheted.
And my mom does cross-stitch.
One of my grandmothers was a beautiful painter.
A couple of my aunts are beautiful painters.
And I was always just bad at these things because there was a missing link that
like, I just, I didn't want to practice.
If I'm not immediately good at something, I don't want to do it at all.
And I think that's how you get a hobby as you start being bad and
then you gradually get better.
Yeah.
And so I didn't have that same, I mean, I wasn't good at D&D at first, as we
can all attest, I had a lot to learn.
But yeah, it has become it's my first hobby and I love that about it.
Matt: I love that.
And I'll say, I feel like D&D is something that like improv, which
is, of course it is also improv.
It is the kind of thing that it is both daunting, which was why some of
your friends didn't want to play, but also there is a part where you can
always get better, but you can't win.
You can't beat it.
Arguably anyway.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Love that.
I think the difference in this hobby is that it doesn't really matter
if you're bad at it, especially 5e.
Especially the fifth version of this game.
I think, I think that if you had started in fourth edition, we wouldn't
be having this podcast right now.
And that is no, there's no real knock for 4e, I haven't played 3e or 3.5, but like
2, and, and definitely 4 the one time that I've played it, it was like so many rules
so much, but 5e is just the kind of thing where you don't have to know anything.
If you can sit around a table.
And have a conversation, carry on a conversation with people, and
then your Dungeon Master's good, or trying to be good, and therefore
can bring things out of you.
You don't have to be an actor or an improviser.
You don't have to know rules.
Because people just tell you what to roll.
That doesn't matter.
So I think, I think that is, that's interesting that you say
that because I feel like this game even more recently, it's the most
accessible approachable version yet.
I mean, everyone says that, but I really do believe it.
And I love that about it.
Alison: I already want to throw our outline out of the window though, and
talk, kind of pull at that thread for a second, because one of the most remarkable
things about D&D to me, it coupled with ADHD is I don't do anything, and I'm
guessing you probably don't either, do anything for long stretches of time.
Like I get bored easily or just lose focus or need to like get
up and shake my sillies out.
And so it's comical to me that, that D&D is a thing that I like can sit at.
And if you guys would play with me for six hours at a time, I would.
Without question.
Again, you know, like I think, I think our longest game was probably
around four hours in the beginning.
Again, when we had less to do than we do now.
But like I play a Thursday night game and I it's for it's about
four hours, you know, with a break.
And I like, and it ends almost midnight my time and yet I always want to go longer.
Which is fascinating to me and I don't pay attention to every second of every game.
Obviously there are times when I get distracted by something shiny.
And that's fine.
You know, I can usually get reeled back in pretty quickly though, but
it's the fact that I even desire to sit in a place and do a thing without
doing other things at the same time.
I frustrate my friends, cause like, when we like hang out and like watch
movies, I'm like playing on my phone or like doing something in the kitchen.
Like there's always a, like at least two things at once I have to be doing.
D&D is really one of the first things that, yes, there are moments
of distraction, but for the most part, I just want to do that thing.
Matt: But knowing you, I wonder how wild it actually is, because it just really
touches on so many things that you do.
We're both, we're both former performers.
We're both performers stage and music and, and whatnot.
So of course there's going to be that part of it, you know, for the two of us.
That's that's understandable natural, but I, but I think that the part that
really is the extra, you know, grabber for you, is that it is so very social.
It's so very social.
So it isn't like television.
Because really watching television with a group of people is only social in
that there's multiple people in a room.
It's not necessarily a social endeavor.
D&D has to be.
And so I think that anytime that your focus does wane, you're brought
back in by a player, by the DM, by something else that you've done.
And.
I don't know.
Alison: You're right.
Matt: Yeah.
I wonder if that's a big, a big extra part of it for you, specifically.
Alison: Well, and I wonder too, if you know, like, you know, as a former
performer, I think that that's why I didn't like knitting or drawing
because they didn't give back to me.
They didn't, you know, feed me in any way.
Way, and yeah, maybe that's exactly it, that just out of the gate, without
any knowledge or talent, you can play D&D and it can instantly be this
immersive storytelling experience.
Matt: Yeah.
I love that.
It has been an unexpected joy.
Alison: For sure.
I thought we would do this, we would hang out, you know, we'd
play a couple hours here and there.
It'd be fun and I'd add it to the very long list I have of stuff I do.
Stuff I have done, stuff I'm mediocre at.
Cards on the table, I now play currently right now, March 2022,
four sessions a week on average.
Three of those with you.
And our friend Fitz is, is the one that is in all four of those sessions with me.
And I, you know, I was beginning to wonder, is there a limit, is there,
is there a point, and so apparently the limit is five days a week.
I was asked by some friends, if I would DM for them.
And it's funny because I've been begging them to get into D&D cause
I feel like they would love it.
And then, you know, finally they turned it back on me and I said, okay, great.
Yeah, we'll do this.
If you'll DM.
Oh, crap.
And as you know, DM-ing is a whole different battle map ball game,
whatever, than showing up as a player.
Matt: Yeah.
And that's important to think about as well.
I personally, I prefer being the Game Master.
It's what I was when I was little, I like the work, I like to prep.
It's I mean, it's, it's hard to call it work because it's, it's so
joyful for me to sit down and think.
And that's another ADHD thing for me.
Why I want to get so good at it.
Why I'm, I'm never un- interested in any aspect of it.
There's no aspect of it that ends up being something I'm like, yeah.
I'm not really into that part of it.
I like being a player, too.
I do, but I really I'm really, really, really like that part of it.
Myself.
Now the interesting thing for me is that you didn't grow up being a dark
fantasy or scifi fantasy person.
Alison: I mean, I have a healthy appreciation.
I grew up loving Star Wars, you know, for instance, but definitely not as
much fantasy though for, you know, that it was just not that I didn't like it.
It was just something I didn't touch as much.
And I mean, you know, growing up as a, you know, adolescent of the nineties,
I vividly remember it, my junior high and high school, within the nerd
camp, there were two groups of nerds.
There were the Magic, the Gathering nerds and the D&D nerds.
And they were very different and they did not cross pollinate.
And, and first of all, it was, you know, Alabama in the nineties.
So I'll let you sit with your own visualization of that.
And it was all dudes.
And so I was a nerdy, nerdy girl.
I mean, one of my favorite things about becoming yours and Evan's
friends is that you have really like pulled out my inner nerd.
I think that was the nerd I was always meant to be.
I just didn't know how.
I needed my nerd Jedi master.
You know, I wonder if I had been friends with different people, I guess is what I'm
trying to say, if maybe I would have felt differently because I do love it so much.
And it does feel so like core to me now that I'm like, how did I ever exist?
I just think in high school, I was my own brand of nerd.
I was a theater nerd.
You know, I was the kid who ran around the halls, you know,
singing every word of Rent.
You know, I was that of nerd.
Matt: Yup.
Alison: I was, I was one of the, I was one of those girls.
And the band nerd and the choir nerd.
But not the fantasy gamer nerd.
I've never really been into video games.
I think I lacked some level of hand-eye coordination there.
My brother was very into video games and got every console as it dropped
and I was happy on the Atari because I didn't have to learn new skills.
It always comes back to like, Alison doesn't want to fail or be bad at things.
Which I guess we'll have to explore if that's a component of ADHD.
Matt: I mean it's got to be.
And you know, we're very, very different in that way.
Like we you've mentioned it twice, you're not wanting to fail.
And I have the absolute opposite where I used to go into auditions
and say, oh yeah, I can do that.
Can you do this?
Oh yeah, for sure.
I mean, I, and I couldn't do it.
But I was like, I'll figure it out.
I can always wing it and I always end up winging it.
And so similarly, this is very interesting for me.
This is your first hobby and for me, this is something I really just ache
to be better and better at, right?
To achieve an effortlessness that, that a Mercer does or.
Or a Brennan does, but for me, fantasy and sci-fi was actually my first love.
So I think it's a very fair correlation to go from theater nerd or a music
nerd to D&D and like how they match.
But for me, D&D was the way to officially, with rules, act out these
fantastic things that I was digesting.
The stories and the Knights and dragons.
Horses.
I was like, wait a minute, there's a game that you can get that you can,
you can then create whatever you want?
Which, oh, here's another topic for the future: I want blank slates.
And I want to create them from scratch.
That's interesting.
Okay.
Side note.
But…
Alison: Are we writing these down?
Matt: I hope.
We should.
Oh boy.
Yeah, we should just have a to-do list of things that we need.
Alison: I'll take a stab.
I'll start writing some things.
That's going to be new and different for me.
Matt: Great.
Yeah, so, so that, that was my gateway.
And then I became a music nerd and then I became a theater nerd and
then I became all those other things.
So again, really.
Really fantastic to find it again.
Alison: It's so funny to me, because, so for those who don't know, Matt and Alison,
we are, you know, we have become very good friends in recent years to the point
where I like don't remember a time when you, weren't a massive part of my life.
In getting to know you, I have found all of these wild ways
that we are very, very similar.
But then something like this, like your love of a blank page.
My utter terror at a blank page.
Like our reactions to the same thing in some ways couldn't be more different.
And especially funny, given the conversation around
like, oh, we both have ADHD.
Like it's, it's to me how like wild and different our brains work in
those ways, because I'm the opposite.
I see a blank page and I'm like, Nope.
And I I can't get out of that space fast enough.
Matt: Like today, we were supposed to sit down and talk about.
This was in my mind, the Session Zero.
And you, I mean, trust me, I do love a good to-do list.
So, and I, and I really appreciate when someone else does an outline for any kind
of talk, but it is interesting that you said, I have an outline and here it is.
Because you don't, you don't want to be looking at a blank page right
this minute, while we're just trying to make stuff up, which is I get it.
I get it.
I a hundred percent get it.
But that is a good segue though.
Another thing that I really want this podcast to delve into is the sciences and
the understandings of our different types.
And I think there used to be more types of ADHD, but the main three are
inattentive, impulsive, and then combo.
Which I've met some combos.
And those people really, they really are like the full on, you know,
television cliche version of ADHD.
We're relatively functional.
And I, and I feel like the, the combined type, that's that's a lot.
But what I really want with this podcast is to learn more, because apparently
the impulsive type of ADHD doesn't necessarily happen that much in women.
That's the type that I should have.
I wasn't really a hyperactive kid.
I was never diagnosed as a kid.
And so I struggled in silence.
And I would cry when I had to you know, write out dictionary words.
Oh my God.
Seriously.
I remember the tears.
It's so depressing.
yet it's so true.
So I suffered in silence and I learned how to, you know, get by.
And, and it's funny when you talk about your inability to watch TV.
So the way that I've had to cope is to be like a iron fist, I have to be like a
fascist watching TV, because if they don't pay attention, I can't pay attention.
So I've had to learn all these different, I have all these weird
personal rules and regulations to overcome these difficulties.
Alison: You found fun.
Matt: I am so fun.
I am so much fun.
I'm actually really fun for a lot of things, but that is one that is one
example that, yes, that just, I can't.
I'm like, you can't watch your phone.
You can't do.
Cause I won't be able to.
I'll be, I'll be too focused on what you're doing.
Yeah.
But anyway.
I was not officially diagnosed until 30.
Till I was 30, and an only then I feel because I had just managed to
have jobs in my life that kind of were conducive to that lifestyle.
I survived school.
I was not a great I though I was very intelligent, I know.
So I had tons of difficulty there.
But, but yeah, I then just took jobs, i.e.
full-time musicians where you put me in a van and tell me what
to do and get me there on time.
And, and then I know what's next and la la la.
The only time that it became an issue was when I wasn't on the road.
And then suddenly I was super depressed because I could
not motivate to do anything.
I knew I had to do all of this stuff, like go to the doctor
or post office or anything.
And I, I just thought I was broken.
If I ever had to live, you know, I've tried to fit into the nine to five world.
And then luckily I had a roommate that had a book on ADHD and I read it.
And I'm not joking, while I was reading the book, I literally
dropped the book in shock.
I was like, Oh, my God.
There are other people that are like me.
I don't understand.
That's normal?
I mean that other people, what?
I mean, there were kids, there were kids that had ADD but I
just, you know, these are the ones bouncing off the walls, literally.
Alison: Yeah.
Matt: And then they had Ritalin and and you know, so that was not a t hing.
And so, you know, finally, you know, the first, first step was kind
of, you know, knowledge is power.
I think it's a yearly, monthly, daily thing for me is to understand it.
And treat it and accept it and so on and so forth.
But I'm glad I'm again, I'm glad that I am.
I'm glad we're having this, that we can talk about it.
So tell me about your ADHD, Alison.
Alison: Tell me about you.
What are your hobbies?
Yeah, so I grew up, I think a little bit more as that poster child of, you know,
bouncing off the walls hyperactivity, which probably surprises nobody.
Right.
And so I, I do remember being aware, you know, throughout grade school
and especially into junior high and high school, calls home to my
parents saying your girl has ADHD.
Like let's, let's diagnose and help.
And again, growing up in Alabama and the nineties with, I think a
lot of misinformation and Ritalin being really the only care plan
for people with ADHD at the time.
I have a cousin with some developmental behavioral disorders that was on
Ritalin, and so I think that there was just a lot of negative stigma
and misunderstanding around that.
So my parents opted not to medicate me.
And so then I just kind of like pushed it down for a really long time for the
rest of junior high and high school and coped and got horrible grades, even though
just like you, I was perfectly smart.
I just was not, you know, challenged in all of the right ways.
Got through high school really by the skin of my teeth.
I mean, I think I have like a, like a 2.1 GPA graduating high school.
It's a wonder I got into college.
Thrived in college though, because the setup was completely different.
I went to a very small college, Queens University of Charlotte, that
was all discussion-based classes.
So now I'm sitting in a circle with people on my level, talking about
the texts that I just read and I'm interested in it, so I want to be
an active part of that conversation.
And you know, suddenly I'm on the Dean's list.
You know, with my lousy 2.1 from high school.
And so I think that that was when, you know, like I started
to realize I'm different.
You know, but there are other ways to not just cope but thrive, you
know, with, or without medication.
But I mentioned at the start of this, that you were actually one of the
people that made me have that same aha moment that you had with your book.
You wrote a blog like at some point when I was in college,
for the band.
And talked about your struggles with ADD.
And it was, it was definitely a light bulb moment because all of
the different symptoms that you were describing were like things
that I thought were wrong with me.
I especially didn't know other women like me.
My only frame of reference for add was the hyperactive boys who had nervous
ticks and couldn't sit still and people blamed their sugar intake, you know?
Matt: Yeah.
Alison: And so I remember you writing that blog, and, and suddenly like it all
clicking that it wasn't about, you know, the hyperactivity, but it was about the,
like being distracted, being inattentive.
Not being able to control your impulses.
And, and, and so I, I didn't do anything with that information, I'm sorry to
say, for another decade beyond that.
Again, I just kind of tucked it down and pushed it away and
figured this is the way that I am.
And it really wasn't until I started a more focused therapy practice
in my early thirties and began to address some other issues in my life
that my therapist brought it up.
And that, you know, had me talking to my doctor which, so it was.
It was, I was probably around 34 when I got officially diagnosed.
And then say, it's like, you know, okay, now I'm now I'm part of this community.
And in the meantime, I think, you know, somewhere between my mid twenties and
mid thirties I'm in my late thirties now for anybody listening to this.
I, you know, I think that ADD and ADHD and whatever we want to call it became
more talked about more publicized.
You know, more people started to come forward and share memes about it.
And once something goes to like meme state, like that's it, it's
no longer a stigma, which is great.
This is one of the upsides of social media.
This is one of the reasons I will champion various platforms is that it does help you
find and belong within your communities.
And so watching friends of mine, who I would consider a successful by all counts,
talk about their mental health or their ADHD struggles has been helpful for me.
And then I've tried to pay that forward by being open and honest.
I have nothing to hide.
I have nothing to be ashamed of.
It's just a part of who I am and to a similar, you know, a note that you made,
like I've, I'm now happy that I have ADHD.
It has led me to success because of my abilities.
You know, it can be a super house, super power when harnessed correctly.
Matt: Yeah.
Along those lines of, of community and.
I mean.
Even after I was diagnosed.
There are many times where I, I was like, well, maybe I don't believe in it.
Because it has been, it has been a very touchy, touchy subject since I
was little, since you were little, and then, you know, only now, as you
said, it is coming to the forefront.
It's been, I feel like it isn't.
It, you know, it isn't used in an ablest way as much people
don't talk about my ADHD.
Because they realize, okay, well, this is actually a serious thing.
I didn't necessarily feel comfortable calling it a disability until
somewhat recently when I was involved in a disability community.
My wife is deaf.
And it was the the people with other disabilities that, that kept urging
me to talk about ADHD as a disability.
And if I were to create a mind map, which I often have to do just to get
something out of my head, I could easily point to things where this disability has
you know, affected my day to day life.
Which is the definition of a disability.
Right.
So I'm, I'm on board with calling it that I, I, you know, I, I certainly, I do have,
you know, full ability to hear things.
So my disability is very different from my wife's.
If you were to talk to her, she would say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
He has a disability.
And I think you're right, now more than ever is the time to talk about
this because, you know, I am medicated.
I have been on and off of it since 30, but I've been really trying to be super
diligent and learn about medication for the last, you know, maybe five years.
There's a, there is a ton of full-on ableism in the pharmaceutical
world when it comes to this.
And it's funny because you would never not give a deaf person a cochlear implant
if they wanted one, but they, they try very hard not to give me Vyvanse.
Really hard.
So I would love to talk about some of those things coming up.
You know, whether or not you feel comfortable identifying as this
disorder as being a disability or not, that's not the important thing, but.
I think you're right.
The more people talk, the better it's going to be.
The more comfortable people will be.
Nothing you could ever say to me could mean more to me than the
stories that you just told me, where I was honest about something.
And that something is something that you heard.
And then you went on a personal journey.
That will make all those years, all that time in a rock and roll
band be so worth it in my life.
And so I'm hoping maybe even this podcast could be something
similar for other people.
It's funny when you mentioned that, I don't necessarily want to talk about
that band too much, but one thing that I discovered the last time I was on tour is
that there was a song that I had to learn.
And it was a song that I wrote about a visit to Prague that
I took with an ex-girlfriend.
And I was learning these lyrics again and going.
Whoa.
I had ADHD and I wrote about it.
I literally wrote about it and I did not know.
Alison: I was sitting nexting next to you… you were writing out the
lyrics at Footlight before that show and you look up at me in the
middle of it and go, holy shit.
I was writing about ADHD you know, however many years ago.
I did I watched the light bulb go off in your eyes.
Matt: I love that stuff.
I love it so much.
Our human ability to become more wise.
That is one of the best ones for sure.
So yeah, I look forward to having this podcast with you to share our
wisdom and to learn new things.
As much as we possibly can about all those things.
Alison: Yeah.
I'm obviously looking forward to talk to you about two of our subjects that
we talk about together a lot anyways.
But I hope it becomes a conversation, I want to hear from other people.
I want you to chime in.
I have hope for the future.
I am a youth group adviser.
So I have the privilege of working with with girls.
And when I see the things that they post and the things that they
just don't care about that I cared about so much as a high schooler.
It gives me hope.
And when I see people just kind of leaning into these stigmas and pushing
on these boundaries, especially on social media, I'm excited to kind
of get to be an active part of that.
Hopefully with this conversation.
And of course have another platform to talk about Dungeons & Dragons.
Matt: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how they actually do fit together,
but I think they fit together a lot.
I really do.
Alison: They do.
Matt: Well, how do you feel about our Session Zero so far Alison?
Alison: I love it!
We're doing so good.
Matt: All right.
Alison: I'll sit here and roll dice now.
Matt: Okay.
Great.
Alison: I just rolled a natural 20, I think that was the Dice Gods
telling us that we crushed it.
Yay go us Session Zero, but also we've opened the door for future talks.
Matt: And I second Alison, if anybody ever hears this and wants to write us.
Maybe you should put a survey out for this, too.
What kind of topics do you like?
If they have something to do with ADD or D&D.
Alison: I will go ahead and go on record and say we will welcome guests.
If you want to come talk about your experience or just
fire questions off at us.
I think it's great that so many people are talking about this and
we now get to be two more of them.
Matt: Well, I think it's a really good place to be because it feels like the
end of a podcast, and we still have five minutes left on the Time Timer.
Those are my best days.
Alison: I do want you to make the Time Timer go off so everybody can hear it.
The magic.
I relax when I hear the Timer go off now, like, you know, I don't know if
it's my, what is the, the bell, when the, you know, the dog expects a treat?
What's that called?
Matt: Yes.
Pavlov.
Alison: Great.
There it is.
Matt: There it is.
Alison: That's it.
That's the whole show.
Matt: Okay.
Until next time.
Alison: Talk to you soon.
Matt: Okay.
Alison: Okay.