Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Shining Through Inspiring Voices of Autism with show host Jennifer Dantzler. My name is Mason. I have autism. Thank you for taking the time to learn about the world of autism. If you enjoy what you hear today, don't forget to follow this podcast.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Hey, everyone, this is Jennifer Dantzler, and I'm the executive director and founder of Inspire, a nonprofit whose mission is to create truly inclusive communities through education and engagement. The goal of this podcast is to shine a light on real people and their stories in hopes of inspiring others who are on this journey of autism. Either themselves, their child, their loved one, their co worker. I truly believe ignorance is not bliss, and we cannot be inclusive communities if we do not understand the people in the community.
With autism now affecting 1 in 31 people, we need to get louder about this topic. We recognize that autism is a spectrum. There are a lot of people with a lot of different needs, a lot of resources available or none available. And we know that in every episode, we can't meet everyone's needs for their specific interest.
However, we hope that in each episode you do gleam some kind of insight as to how you can help your child or yourself be a better advocate. And as we go through our podcast, our goal really is to address the entire spectrum, the various needs, the various environments that we're going to be in. And we hope that there's something in every episode for each one of you. So let's get started today. I'm here with a very special guest. Her name is Sophia Schlecht. And I actually met Sophia years ago when she was doing her high school thesis on women with autism. And so we're going to talk a little bit today about what she learned through her thesis, but more so we're going to talk about her journey with ADD and anxiety. So, Sophia, thank you so much for being here.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Thank you, Jen. I'm really excited to be.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Okay, so the first thing I want to do is let's talk a little bit about autism. So what is something specific that you learned while doing your thesis about women with autism?
[00:02:06] Speaker C: I found out that was a general issue overall, with research in women. It wasn't specific just to mental health, but that it was overall. And the more I looked into it, I found out there are also health issues associated with autism. Women, for instance, reproductive health issues. It just brought to attention that autism isn't just the diagnoses that you see or the symptoms that you see in the DSM 5. It is your life that is impacted. It's not just, again, the diagnoses or the symptoms. It is your life experiences that are impacted and how people see you, how you see the world. And so it became clear that oftentimes just research isn't enough. You need the story of people with autism. And so when I was doing my research, I didn't just look at peer reviewed stuff or what the experts were saying. I read books from women with autism and I found out they are still fighting to be seen within the research community, within psychology. And even when I was in school studying psychology, oftentimes it was men were used as the case studies or as the example and not women. And I had to push back on professors. And I was like, this is real. It's still an issue in the overall field today. And this needs awareness. So that was the big takeaway that I got from that thesis paper, is that as much hope as we have that you know that there's equal research on women and men, it's not the case. And it will still be a long journey ahead of us.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: That's so true. And it still is the case. That was in high school. And we're going to talk about your college experience in a minute and your wonderful degrees, which will be no surprise that you graduated with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in neuroscience and women and gender studies. Right.
So did this thesis in high school maybe start to launch a little bit of that direction?
[00:03:32] Speaker C: It did, for sure. Thesis paper also coincided with my own diagnosis with ADHD and then my mom's later diagnosis with adhd. So I was like, okay, this is also, you know, they say research is me search. And that was kind of the case for me.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: I love that. Say that again. Research.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Research is me search.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Love that.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: So it just kind of launched the I would like to be an advocate not just for myself, but for others. And so I decided I wanted to study psychology because there needs to be a change in the field. There needs to be more research and awareness. So like, I'd focus on that with my women and gender studies. I focus on that with my neuroscience. Even in sociology classes, I got to do a paper on ADHD and marriage satisfaction. With that I just got to get like, really widen my view of how ADHD or autism, while it is kind of like born in the field of psychology, you can see it in sociology, biology, neuroscience, most fields actually, even political science, you can go that route. So for me it was just again, eye opening how pervasive ADHD is or autism in your life.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: All the neurodiversities, right?
[00:04:28] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: One in four people now have some form of neurodiversity. And research has not caught up yet with what we need to know onto how support people and more specifically women. Right.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: That must be very frustrating for you. Cause that's your job. Every day is supporting people.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yes, unfortunately, I'd say I have job security right now, which is not necessarily a good thing. Right. Because I have a lot of people to talk to. And I know we had on the podcast another day, which you met once Amelia, who was diagnosed with high functioning autism as a teenager.
And it was really because of research she was doing herself too, and said, hey, I think that's me.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Right. And I think for a lot of
[00:05:04] Speaker B: women, that's how this is happening. I know for a lot of women, it's. They have a child and they start seeing something different. They start doing their research and saying, wait, I check all the boxes also. Yep.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: I remember that that happened with my mom and I. I got my diagnosis and I was like, mom, if I have adhd, you definitely do, because I inherited your brain for sure. And then she got diagnosed and it was just life changing. Cause 52 years of thinking that she was dumb or not too much or couldn't get things. And I had the same frustrations. I was like, I know I'm smart, but why am I procrastinating? Why am I struggling in school? And it's just this feeling of being a failure. Like, you know something is wrong, but you can't put a word to it until you have that diagnosis. So when I hear people say, I'm not going to tell my son that they're autistic, I'm not going to tell my daughter that she has adhd. I'm like, no, please do. It is life changing for me. It was so healing knowing that I'm not wrong. I just, there's a reason, like my brain is just a bit different. It's wired differently. And so diagnosis is in itself, I think, a healing factor.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: And I'm so glad you say that because you're so right that there might be some listeners who are thinking, well, I kind of suspected I or my child, but I don't want to put a label on it. We've come so far with that. And to your point, just getting the diagnosis helps give some answers. You know, not to sound cliche, it might be different, not less. Right, Exactly. It's cliche, but it's a very accurate phrase in the world to be a little selfish that this journey for you started out in the world of autism and doing Research on autism, I always want to say, because you went to Covenant Prep, right?
[00:06:25] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: And I was always so impressed because I was asked to come in as panelist. Panelist, Right. And I've done that a couple times now, and I.
Such an impressive activity to get high schoolers to do because, look, it helped shape a little bit of where you went and what you're focusing on. This is very near and dear to me because I also have a daughter who was just diagnosed with ADD at 17, and before that was diagnosed with many other mental health challenges, given many medications for other challenges, and none of those medications seemed to help her, sometimes often made things worse. It was just so eye opening. And I'm behavior analyst. It's what I do for a living. And I still didn't know or understand what ADD in women looks like. So tell me a little bit about your journey to diagnosis and how all that went.
[00:07:13] Speaker C: It was a lot. It was. Again, it started with that senior thesis I read about women with autism. I was like, okay, some of this sounds very familiar to me and how I act, but not quite like me. And so I ended up getting tested. I'm so glad that I had the therapist that I did because she said, on paper, your scores aren't necessarily abnormal. I see the struggles. I don't think the test was necessarily designed to catch ADHD in. And she was like, you definitely have it. I was just so glad that I had her because she saw me. And not just here's what the standard list of symptoms looks like in most people, but, like, I can see that you had to make up for a whole bunch of things using the skill set that you have developed over time. Kind of like masking with autism. ADHD has the same thing. As soon as I had that diagnosis, it was again that huge relief. But it was also, it was just so nice that I didn't have to feel like I was masking so much anymore. I was like, this is just a part of me. I don't have to hide it. Unmasking takes years. I still do it, but having the tools, knowing how to support myself and how to advocate for myself was life changing. Also, having a mom who has ADHD also helped because we could talk about our experiences together, because as you said with medication, I'm not sure what your daughter challenge was struggling with, but, like, sometimes you crash really hard with medication, and not everyone understands that. Me, my parents, didn't understand that until my mom also had to take stimulant medication and realized, oh, wow, crashing is Brutal. It was just so helpful. Diagnosis of one thing. Having community support is another with people who share your experiences because it opens your eyes to, I'm not alone in this. I have resources. There's a whole world out there that actually understands me and that I'm not just weird or quirky. It's just like my brain is different and I will learn how to deal with that.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Right, Right. So for. In case there are some women listening who are thinking, well, that's not me, but maybe it is, talk a little bit about what some of your struggles were.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: There's quite a few and sometimes it's hard to pinpoint it. I think especially when you're high functioning, you sometimes forget that you're struggling until you realize, oh, wow, I've gotten really, like, far off the usual path. Like, I know obviously attention is an issue, but there's also rejection, sensitivity. So being very sensitive to people telling you no. Which can also mean that setting boundaries can be hard. Sometimes you think that you're paying attention, but then you're thinking about paying attention and how well you're paying attention, and then you realize, oh, I wasn't paying attention. What about, like, starting a project?
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Like starting initiatives like this, or starting a class project that's not due for a month?
[00:09:35] Speaker C: It can be so exhausting. If the task can take five minutes and then build up to that is two hours. Like an email? I don't like writing emails because sometimes it is just a simple, can you make it to this on this day? I'm kind of like, well, I don't know, can I make it this day? And what if I have to do this? And then there's 5,000 thoughts that make the active, like the start of the project so much more difficult than the project itself that you get stuck in your own head. And that's that executive dysfunction as well. It's kind of like you know what you need to do, but you. You're frozen. And it is maddening because sometimes it's something that you want to do. Like, for instance, I love painting on occasion, but sometimes getting to the point where I actually start painting takes forever because I'm stuck. That also translates to homework in school, where you want to get your project done because you don't want to be awake till 12. No one wants to be, but it's just. It's not happening. And that makes you feel lazy and stupid and dumb because these are all tasks that you can do and you want to do them, but for some reason you can't start Them from the outside, looking in, often to parents or to peers. It's kind of just like, well, why aren't you doing it? Why are you being lazy? Why are you putting this off? It would be so much easier for you to start it. And it's like, I know it would be easier if I just started. Everyone knows that, but I can't. And so I think that's often maddening. And that's how it's so easy to get into, like the cycle of feeling like a failure, I think, for women with adhd. So I think if you constantly have that feeling of not being enough but also being too much and something's different, you know you're not lazy. You know you can do it, but it's not happening. I think it's a good idea just to be like, maybe there's something else going on that I don't really know yet.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: Because to your point, there was probably a lot of your life, school age life, where you thought, but this is normal. This is what everyone goes through.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: What you said is so important. Where as a parent, I didn't understand either. Right. And so, yes, there was a lot of unnecessary battles, unnecessary fighting, unnecessary. Okay, it's due Friday. You need to start today. Why wouldn't you start today? That makes total sense to start today. And she legitimately couldn't, just couldn't. But I read too much into it that it was something else.
I know a lot around projects orderly, like keeping rooms and things organized and clean. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:11:34] Speaker C: For me, thankfully, that's never been an issue. I also grew up very German, so it's kind of like, you know, everything stays clean and organized.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: But I can tell that if I'm not doing well, mentally cleaning my room is the last thing on my mind. It is so hard to get out of it because there's something on the floor. I'm like, again, that activation energy to do something, it's just not there. So that, I don't know, sock on the floor, picking that up two seconds. But the mental strain of doing that sometimes feels like a huge burden that you just can't get to. Also, I used to think that was very organized until some of, like, until I saw some of my other friends, school folders, like how they stay on top of things, like with their calendars. Like, I always got a planner because I was like, I'm going to be organized. I could never keep up with the calendar. I tried sometimes, yeah, you think you're organized. You think you're Doing everything right. And then you see the actual normal and you're kind of like, oh, never mind, I'm actually behind on some things. But often when you're smart enough, you can cover it with the tools that you've learned. And so you don't realize that there's a gap until often too late when you're really struggling and failing with something.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Well, or to your point, you're using those tools back to the masking or the energy. It takes a lot, right? And so my daughter would come after school and have like meltdowns, but it was because she had to hold it together so hard in school. But yet, you know, the original diagnosis was more mental health challenges. It wasn't. It was because there was too many things to do in school and have to attend for too long. And she would come home and be so overwhelmed by homework. And she'd say, I have so much homework. But then she'd be done 30 minutes later. I said, well, then it wasn't much homework. But it was because it was three different subjects.
[00:13:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Maybe only five minute assignments, but because it was three different subjects.
[00:13:09] Speaker C: Right, exactly. When you have the tools to hide it all day in school. Covenant. While they were great with the thesis presentation, getting accommodations was brutal because it's not a public school. They thought I actually wanted to get ahead. When I first got diagnosed, they were like, we don't see her struggling in school. It's like, that's because I hold it together all day and when I get home, I crash. I don't do my homework forever, even though I want to. And I'm way behind. I can't pay attention to school. I'm just good at figuring things out. So even if I miss five minutes of the lecture, I can probably go back and figure out what they meant and how everything worked together. And so, yeah, they didn't really believe me at first. And the accommodations that I got for math were five extra minutes that everyone else also got. And why would you need more when everyone also already got the extra time? And maybe it's just that you're not good at math. And so I had one teacher who really got it, but everyone else. Most of the teachers just didn't see it. I was like, I raise my hand all the time and then forget what I'm saying. I lose my track all the time. I can't write an in class essay because I can't get 5,000 thoughts together. So I don't know if your daughter also had those issues, but when you're High functioning. It's like, yeah, I'm high functioning, but also no one sees my struggles.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Yes, very, very well said. And that brings up another great point about accommodations, because it's getting better. But there's still this stigma about accommodations, whether it's in school or college. But guess what? Your diplomas don't have on the bottom of them the accommodations that you needed, whether it was extra time on tests, it could be very successful in helping you be successful. So let's talk a little bit about college then. So you went to school, you got your degree. Did you get any accommodations in college?
[00:14:37] Speaker C: Yes. SMU was actually fantastic with everything related to extended time, quiet environments. They were absolutely fantastic with that. If a professor was more new to it, either from a different culture or they just weren't sure how accommodations work, they were just curious. I never had an issue with anyone rude for that part at least. Everyone was very nice. Everyone was very understanding and accommodating. The only issue that I ever had was with Fenny, my service dog. I got her very shortly before the start of the semester. And I was very quick succession of events, like school was supposed to start in one week. I decided that I needed Fennie. The week before move in was Friday. School started Monday. They were not very happy with that. They said, we need 60 days. I was like, I don't have 60 days. This is my reality, this is what I need. You're just kind of gonna have to deal with it. Unfortunately, there was multiple back and forth of like every single time I talked to them. They wanted essentially like to push Fenny out. And I was like, no, she's a service dog in training. Like, I can show you the proof of everything. And they were kind of like, okay, well fine. I guess even though we didn't give us a 60 days advance, like, I guess she can say, I was like, well, that's very kind of you.
And then even legal. Exactly. And then even after she got certified, here are all her credentials, everything that you need. And they wanted to get on a call with me. I was like, all right. And they said, okay, well we still need a service dog letter. Cause last time we only got an ESA letter from you. I was like, okay, last time you only wanted an ESA let.
That's another hundred dollars that just are gone now. They also asked, well, we don't see you struggling. Your grades are fine. I was like, you're about. They were like, you're about to graduate top of your class. What's going wrong? I didn't think That I had to tell you guys that I've been having panic attacks for the past two years. That's not really relevant to you guys or to my accommodations, but it is now. She was just kind of like, you know, you're very defensive. You should probably talk to that about with your therapist. And I was like, what?
It was the most bizarre response because, like, the three times that we've talked, it's trying to get Fenny away from me. Now she's certified and you're still trying some sort of loophole. But you're my advocate and coordinator and now you're telling me that I'm too defensive. I never had issues with the professors, only the actual people that were supposed to help me get accommodations.
So it was just kind of like, well, that was eye opening that even people who are meant to be advocates and who are meant to be there
[00:16:43] Speaker B: for you aren't necessarily add in women especially. You really can't see. It's mostly all internal, maybe occasional fidgeting. I do have a dear, dear friend who cannot sit still for the life of her and better have some kind of fidget in her hand the whole time. Other than that, to your point of the internal struggles, the toll that it takes, the masking, the keeping it all together, the effort it takes to just plan out the next hour. Right. Because I think also time lapse judgment is another one. Like not having any idea how long it'll take to get somewhere or planning how long something will take is another issue. Right.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't have that.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Well, you were here today on time, so there you go. So let's go back and talk about Fenny for a minute.
So she's your service puppy and she's beautiful and she smiles for the camera on cue, beautifully. I don't know if that was part training, but she did a great job. What made you think to get Fennie? How did you learn about service animals?
[00:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah, so honestly, it was not the standard way at all. Basically what triggered it is I had been taken care of her all summer for one of our very close family members who was living with us. And he passed away the Monday before school started. Oh, wow. And so I was already like, okay. I've been struggling with panic attacks for the past three years. I have ADHD and anxiety. I don't know how to navigate this. If I can't take her, we have to give Fennie away. Which I know is not the reason why you should have a service dog. But also, like, I can't get rid of Her. I need to have her in my life and I need someone like, I need her definitely to keep me sane. And so, again, not the standard route at all. And I honestly didn't realize just how much I needed her until a few months into the training where even though I was dealing with basically mourning my senior year and the life that I thought I had without a service dog, mourning the death of a loved one, figuring out service dog training and a full course load, somehow I was still doing better mentally during that craziness than I had been doing before. Which by all means makes no sense, except for when you factor in how absolutely amazing she has been for me.
So not the standard route. I wouldn't change it for the world. It was definitely the most challenging thing I've ever done, but it was also the most rewarding.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: So you talked a little bit about some college bumps or people not understanding about your service animal. Do you encounter that now?
[00:18:45] Speaker C: On occasion. Some people choose judgment over curiosity. And you can. It's often adults. I'll do that. Like, I get when people stare at her because it's exciting. There's a dog, but there's some people that stare at me and it's kind of like, so what's wrong with you? Because I don't have a visible disability. And there's people like, well, is she a real service dog? Because she just got up and wiggled and it's just like. Like a service dog is still a dog. They will be as well behaved as your well behaved five year old. They're still a dog. They will mess up, they will do whatever. So I sometimes have people that also are kind of like, oh, I know I shouldn't distract her, but I just can't help myself. I'm kind of just like, you know, you should be able to help yourself. You really should.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: I loved the phrase you just said judgment over curiosity.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I always prefer curiosity over judgment, but
[00:19:23] Speaker B: other people choose that, and that is more of society. Because people ask me, well, what can we do? And I say, just give more grace to everyone in the world, whether or not they're carrying a sign that says I have autism or not. Just give more grace. But I love if we could switch flip the script to curiosity over judgment as your first initial part of the conversation.
[00:19:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Because when people ask me, so what is she for? That's fine with me. Like, I'm happy to explain that to someone. But when it's like, what is she for? What's wrong with you? I'm kind of like, okay, take A step back, that's not okay.
But yeah, when people are just kind of like, okay, I want to know more, that's fine. But when there's that judging, the. Trying to figure out, is she real or is she not? That's.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: Why do you have her?
[00:20:02] Speaker C: It's just, I'm over it because I don't want to be like the circus show every single time I go to HEB for my groceries. So you get very comfortable with people staring at you and also staring back when people are rude.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Okay. Wow. Yeah, that's really disappointing.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: But a lot of people are very good with it too. So I don't want that to be. There's just some people that.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Yeah, well, sometimes those data points are louder than all the good data points. Right, exactly. Talk to me a little bit about what some of your struggles in life now are as an adult.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: Can I flip the script on you for a second? What are some challenges in the industry
[00:20:31] Speaker B: right now in the world of autism or neurodiversity in general? Well, you just said a few of them where ignorance. And I say all the time, ignorance is not bliss. I think it's getting better. Autism is now 1 in 31. Neurodiversity is 1 in 4. So I think we're becoming more aware. When I go to employers and talk about my neurodiversity in the workplace training, they'll say, well, we don't have anyone who's neurodiversity diverse working here. And I'll say, well, it's one in four people, so chances are you do. You just might not be supporting them in the right way. And then as a result, you're also not getting the best of them that you could be getting from them. So a lot of what I try to train on is things like don't send that four page email, right. Send it in chunks at least. Bullet pointed, maybe a little color coding. If you're in an industry where at the beginning of the day maybe you're having like that 10 minute standup meeting where a manager then gives out the list of all the things for the day verbally and you're like, nope, write them down and only give two to three things at a time. It's simple things and people, I think, think it's harder than it is. And so it makes them scared. And As a result, 80% of people on the spectrum are unemployed or underemployed. And that's painful to know because they are very capable of holding down jobs. Right. So for me, ignorance is One. And then I think the other thing that's hard for me is neurodiversity in general and more specifically, autism services are not scalable because everyone is so individualized and different.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: And what. What people need is different. Right. So even you and I were just talking about accommodations. Yeah, I get it. There has to be this sort of standard set of accommodations. Extra time on tests, notes in high school or middle school or elementary school, like leaving class early to get to your next class.
But it's still not scalable in an easy way. Right. If we're going to really serve our community and serve our people with neurodiversity the right way, it's really gotta be individualized. So it's very hard when I meet people who are asking me for business advice and they have this grand scale, and I was like, good luck. If you can do it with quality, more power to you. I haven't figured out a way to do it yet if you're gonna do it right. And so I think that one by one is what we wanna do. But a lot of society is more like we need to scale everything fast.
[00:22:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. It's very frustrating. Like you said, everyone is an individual. And. And I think a lot of times the best approach for accommodations is relational and not just looking at symptoms again. So, like, ask someone what they need and what helps them. That's the best way to accommodate for them at the end of the day, instead of, like you said, some blanket accommodation that might completely miss the mark for someone. So I. Yeah, I agree.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: As far as ADD and adults, where should we be going next as a society or in medically or in research, how can we help support women with add? The best.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: I think one of the best things to do, honestly, is listen to our stories. Kind of like a podcast like this. I know you have a whole bunch of other fantastic podcasts from people with adhd, and I think that is the best, especially when we're inundated with stereotypes, research, books, experts that all know about adhd, but often it's still from the outside looking in. And so I think if someone takes the time to read books by us, movies by us, listen to songs by us, just listen to our stories. Because people always say, like the organization Autism Speaks, that also means that you have to listen. And sometimes that doesn't happen. And it's advocacy comes from building relationships with people and knowing their stories and their lived experiences, not just from knowing the dsm, not just from reading research papers. Those are all important, but oftentimes that gives such a two dimensional version of ADHD and it doesn't give the full picture like right now with mental health becoming much more central to the conversation all around us. Oftentimes you hear people say, oh my anxiety so bad, oh I'm so adhd, oh I'm so blah, blah, blah. But then it's actually not adhd. They're just kind of like they've, they're
[00:24:15] Speaker B: just having a bad day.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: They're just having a bad day and it's kind of like I fully understand it and I do think that we should be like empathetic of challenges, but I do think we need to still keep in mind that ADHD and autism, they are still a neurodiversity, is a mental disability. And so just talk to us, ask us, like read blogs from us while looking at all the other things as well. Because I think that's the best key to advocacy is just to know that we are individuals. Because if you can contain multitudes, so can we. So to say, so listen to our stories. That's the best thing I guess they have to say.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: That's a great, great lesson. Okay, what do you want to be doing next? What are you doing? And what do you want to be doing?
[00:24:50] Speaker C: So much?
So right now my focus is actually getting into law school. If things go to plan, probably nine more years of school ahead of me because I would like to do law school. So that's about three years. And then I would definitely have to get my PhD in something psychology related, probably health psychology, because I do see the wide range of issues. Sometimes they're at a policy level, sometimes they're at a psychology level, sometimes even how we teach about neurodiversity in the classroom. And so my goal is with combining a law degree but also expertise in psychology is to help be the best advocate that I can. That's creating policies. I would also love to stay in academia and help teach people like this is how you view psychology. And it's not just read the textbook, but go out there and again explore our voices and what we actually have to say that so when you actually become part of the field, once you are doing your own work, after you graduate from being a student, you are actually seeing people and not cases. Because I think that's still the biggest issue in how it's taught. Neurodiversity is often taught in such isolation. Instead of recognizing that there are political, social, environmental factors that completely impact how your neurodiversity kind of expresses itself in your lived experiences. So it's a very big plan. But with law and psychology together, I would just really like to be the best advocate that I can, both in policy but also in academia.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: We are thrilled for that because I think the listeners would attest to the fact that one, you can speak from the heart and with knowledge and experience, which I do think helps when you're actually doing research or advocating. Right? Because you really know you can walk the walk and talk the talk.
I feel the same way where until I experienced ADD with my daughter, I wouldn't have been as comfortable, even though it uses a lot of the same principles as I do. In the world of autism, understanding how they adapt and change, especially for women with adhd, is so powerful. So yes, ignorance is not bliss whatsoever. So Sophia, we are so grateful you've been on here. Hopefully some listeners you know that are on the fence or wondering whether they should go get assessed or or talk to someone, hopefully you've convinced them that yes they should. Because as you said, the diagnosis just in itself goes a long way.
And then continuing to be able to advocate for yourself and not feel bad about it. Right. You clearly are a very capable, very smart woman.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: And it shouldn't be hard for you to say, hey, can we have our meetings broken up into half hour meetings and not three hour meetings? You know, things like that just that aren't hard to do and it's just about helping the world understand. So thank you so much for being here.
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Thank you so much. Jennifer. You are truly amazing for everything that you've done for the community and for hosting things like this where we also get to share our perspective. Thank you.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Thank you. Sophia, if you need help or resources, whether you're a parent, someone on the spectrum, a business or a community organization who want to know more or need help or want to share resources, please reach out to us at Info.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: If you enjoy this episode, be sure to follow us, leave a review and and share it with others who want to celebrate neurodiversity. Until next time, keep shying.
