The Hispanic Experience with ADHD

In this episode of the Men's ADHD Support Group podcast, our Founder and President, Marc Almodovar is joined by Jim O'Gara and Julio Rojas to discuss navigating ADHD as Hispanic males. James and Julio share their personal experiences growing up with ADHD in multicultural families, the challenges they faced, and the importance of raising awareness about the condition within Hispanic communities. The conversation touches on the lack of understanding and acceptance of ADHD, the impact of family support, and the benefits of embracing one's unique learning style. James and Julio also offer advice for those struggling with ADHD, emphasizing the importance of self-love, seeking help, and focusing on personal growth.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction and background of Jim O'Gara and Julio Rojas
05:32 - Challenges faced when getting an ADHD diagnosis as a Hispanic male
12:15 - The impact of family support and acceptance on navigating ADHD
18:47 - Celebrating holidays and family gatherings while dealing with ADHD
24:32 - The importance of raising awareness about ADHD in Hispanic communities
31:56 - Advice for one's younger self struggling with ADHD
36:14 - Guidance for listeners recently diagnosed with or suspecting they have ADHD
41:27 - The significance of representation and seeing successful individuals with ADHD

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Transcript

Marc: 0:22

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Men's ADHD Support Group podcast. I am really excited to do this episode today. This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. And today we're going to be talking about navigating ADHD. As a Hispanic male. And this subject is really special to me because, and I just gave this field to everyone before, but many of us growing up with ADHD, we don't really have role models to look up to. We feel, especially in Hispanic communities, we feel very alone and crazy and lazy for having this condition and way of operating. And one of my intentions within the next year is to bring some more. awareness to the Latin Hispanic experience with ADHD. And I'm so excited to be talking today to James O'Gara and then Julio. Julio, what's your last name? Rojas. Julio Rojas. Awesome. That's crazy. My mother's last name is Rojas too. But But I'm really excited to be here chatting with you both and we'll start off with with you, James James, tell me a little bit about yourself, your background with ADHD.

Jim: 1:36

Well, I mean, for my last name, it doesn't sound Hispanic because my father is Irish. My grandparents came from Ponce, Puerto Rico. So my grandmother had and my grandparents had 7 children. My mom's 1 of 7, none of them married Puerto Rican. So my family is very multicultural. Going down the siblings married Irish. Venezuelan my dad, Irish off the boat Italian, off the boat, Greek, like, literally jumped off the boat in New York Harbor, was an illegal immigrant to my, like, to my uncle's married, German Irish. So, I grew up with multiculturalism, like all this, like, backlash against diversity, well, that's my family. I can't not be that. Thanksgiving at my house, all these wonderful foods from different, you know, the different cultures. I didn't find out I was ADHD until January 2021. My sister, my youngest sister, who's 4 years younger than me said, Jim, I think you're ADHD like me. She was diagnosed 2 years prior. So, March 25th, 2021 6 days before I turned 45. I got my diagnosis for combined type. I had. Been diagnosed gifted at 5, I skipped kindergarten, right? 1st grade. I spent, like, maybe 4 days in kindergarten. So I was always in advanced classes, but I didn't realize my or it was undiagnosed all that time. There's times where I drop out, you know, and not perform well enough to stay in the advanced classes, go back to regular. Ace those because they were just too easy and they get bumped back in. So that was like all through my career in till, I graduated high school, that was a pattern in my academics. It wasn't, my ADHD wasn't caught then, or for probably a number of reasons, probably lack of understanding or the myth that smart kids can't have ADHD. But my parents separated when I was a freshman in high school and my dad's an alcoholic and. So there, there were all my. Therapists all the guidance counselors, the counselor at school was focused on that aspect of my life and they were very helpful with that. And, so, I can't fault them for not seeing the, you know, or I don't, blame them for not seeing it. And so that's that's kind of me in a nutshell. I'm a. A music teacher, I adjunct instructor at the college level. And then I have 2 daughters, 11 and. And they, um, after I got my diagnosis, we realized, oh, they're ADHD as well. So they got their diagnosis in July 2022.

Marc: 4:13

Wow. Okay. Well, excited to dive further into that. Thank you for sharing your story. And now, Julio, can you tell me your background? As far as when were you diagnosed with ADHD and what that journey was like?

Julio: 4:27

Yeah. So I, I got diagnosed in 2010. So basically for me, it was, Parents came from Mexico to California here and when I was like three and a half years old, dad was always working work two jobs. Mom you know, wasn't too much in the picture. She was also working. So, in schools are quite different from me. I so I was being taught in English yet Spanish is my 1st language. And not only was I taught in English and Spanish me, my 1st language, I had a so called learning I call it a learning difference. Some people call it a learning disorder, but just learn different. So, basically, I had to learn the language and then I had to learn how to learn in that language as ADHD years. We kind of learn different, right? So I had two things, not in my favor, so to speak. So then I went, I mean, I basically just don't even know how I flew through the school system. I, I just don't really know, you know what I mean? I remember being in high school, they're like, we're gonna ing it to a different school because you you don't have enough credits This other school was a you know, like the continuation. Anyway, so I got outta there and then you know, whatever, just work. Whatever. And then like at 28, I just got really fed up of people just, you know, looking at me because my English was so bad and, you know, and, and, having that that little self esteem. Cause you can't communicate. I mean, throughout my life, I dated, you know, also multicultural. So I remember going to. To my girlfriend's houses and and everyone speaking English and I was just quiet because I didn't understand what the heck they were saying. Yeah, I mean, the stuff they were telling me. I was like, I don't know what that means. You know, it was just very embarrassing. So, basically, at 28, I got fed up. I'm like, I'm going to go back to school. And so with the help of a psychologist, I specialized with ADHD. I went from straight F to straight A's. And then all of a sudden I'm like, well, this is interesting. I'm considered dumb and then I'm smart because I got straight A's and that I was able to get into the 2 top public universities in the United States at that point, United University of California at Berkeley and University of California at Los Angeles. Anyway, so that that's kind of what's going on with me. But I guess for me, it was more about. My mom was there Dad didn't support me much. He didn't understand me. This mom was more like, showed me love and I think that's what really helped me. If she always accepted me for who I was, you know what I mean? Dad was more like, well, this is the way you do things and that's the way you do things. Mom was more like, you know, do things your way and. And so I think that that support that I had from her, even though she wasn't too much in the picture when she was, she supported me a lot. That's kind of what got me through. And to me, now, in retrospect, that like that, that was very important. Extremely important.

Marc: 7:07

Wow, I hear you talk. I'm like, I completely relate. Yeah, same exact thing. Almost now. I'm, I'm curious to hear from the 2 of you, what were some of the challenges and we're going to get into the positives of it too. But some, maybe some of the challenges that you faced when getting a diagnosis for ADHD and if you feel that, like, the Hispanic aspect of it was at all part of it. So, like, what I'm asking is basically is when I think about when I first sought out an ADHD diagnosis at that time, I pretty much had it. instilled in me that I was that I was lazy. That I just wasn't applying myself as much as I should. And a lot of that came from the fact that most of my family, my, my mother at the time and my aunts and everything like that, they didn't even know what the term ADHD meant, you know what I mean? Like it was just like a hyperactive boy and everything like that. For me, I was, I was diagnosed with an inattentive type. And You know, for me, it was like the stigma that that a lot of our culture tends to have around something like this was definitely, it wasn't a full block, but it was, it was definitely a bump in the road that I faced. So I was wondering if any of you two relate to that, what are your thoughts on that?

Jim: 8:36

I don't know if it's necessarily a cultural thing as maybe a A growing understanding thing over time, like that in that, like, an ex-girlfriend of mine, this would have been like 2002, you know, I was, I'm in New York city, you know, we go hang out with one of her best friends and the best friend's boyfriend is a, like a filmmaker and he's got ADHD, but you know, I don't think my girlfriend at the time was like saying, I see the traits he has in you. Like we didn't it just wasn't on our radar. Like in my, I think my family. We knew, so this is a teenager. So like, I mean, I graduated high school in 93. No, we did go to therapy at times for like, you know, actually my parents splitting up. My uncle. The, the 1 that jumped off the boat Greek, he passed away somewhere of 96 for cancer. So we did have therapists met with therapists to talk about grief. And we knew that my grandfather, the Puerto Rican grandfather, he fought in World War 2, and we knew that he had post traumatic stress disorder from that PTSD. And that's 1 reason why he was a workaholic, but so we were folk. I think my family was focused on, like trauma, and we didn't know that we had these neurotypes. Brain brains differences like recently, when my cousins got diagnosed with general anxiety disorder it just, but I think we just, it's just lack of general knowledge, not necessarily a thing that, you know, we have a Puerto Rican family, I don't think it's just, I think greater awareness. Over time of. Mental health and mental conditions and neurotypes is what because looking back though, like a good number of my cousins, you know, like, you could tell we were ADHD as kids, you know, bouncing around, you know, being huge risk takers or doing impulsive stuff had I think our parents known we might have, you know, been diagnosed.

Marc: 10:37

Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah. And by the way, maybe I worded it a little weird, but I'm in complete agreement. It is definitely a lack of. Awareness kind of like I mentioned early on, like, they don't even know a lot of them and even know what ADHD is and and our education system definitely has to come into play there a little bit in my view. But yeah, 100 percent Julio. Did you have any thoughts on that?

Julio: 11:04

Yeah, for me, it was more about, I mean, I've asked my mom a few times and I think, you know, I mean, they were just too worried about, putting food on the table and sending my dad, you know, sending money back to Mexico and so they, you know, it was just work, work, work and more work. So, I think definitely a lack of knowledge. I mean, back in those days, you know, growing up, I think I mean, it wasn't much research like there is now and like, there's probably like only a few medications around. I mean, I could tell you that if I believe that if they would have got me diagnosed, life would have been a lot easier. But in a way, I think that it got me stronger, though, you know, if you want to get a positive, like, going through this tough. Being here, it kind of got me a little stronger. But then again, we don't know what would happen if I had I got medicated. You know, maybe I found out earlier that I was straight A student versus like way later in life. And I felt dumb and the self esteem would have been better. Yeah, and in terms of therapy, I laugh at it now, but I remember one time. So my dad used to take, I used to like to dress nice, for, you know, want to look good. Yeah. And my dad would take my clothes away and he would just give me one, one set of pants and one shirt. So I remember going to, you know, getting sent to therapy and mom would show up. And, and then like, we went there like three times. And then a third time, like the therapist is like, Oh, you brought your uniform. You know what I mean? Cause it was always the same, same shirt, same pants. And so she, you know, I think she finally think three after the 4th time said, you know what, that's not showing up. And I clearly remember these, these words, lost cause this is a lost cause. I had no clue what that meant. Yeah, to me, it was more like, Oh, I guess we're, I guess we're not coming back. she, she can't help us. She goes, the father needs to show up. And my dad didn't believe in that. He was just like, you know, we can have their own business here. We don't need anybody to get in our business and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So that was definitely a challenge, I think, in retrospect, you know, that could have helped, right? The therapy and then the knowledge of, you know, what is this ADHD thing? Maybe my son has it. I mean, no one caught it. Like, I remember being in class and because I'm combined type, so they would put me on the side, like, there would be a bunch of kids here and that would be like on the side there. And I would ask, like, As much as I could in the language and, you know, like, why am I here? And why are they there? You know what I mean? Like, because, I'm, I guess I was just talking a lot and trying to start conversations with people and they were just trying to teach the tradition, the traditional school system way, which obviously, you know, for most of us doesn't work. So, yeah, so those are definitely some some challenges. And definitely low self esteem. You know what I mean?

Marc: 13:41

No, I mean, there's just so many different ways that we can go with that. Because like I said, similar case to me. With my background, I grew up, I'm from Washington Heights in New York City. I grew up around a lot of Dominicans and whatnot. And, in a very low income area. I mean, Shane kind of sent me a comment as you were talking on what you said, because the reality is, is that there are a lot of Hispanic kids growing up with a mom who's working two jobs to hold it down and everything like that. Like we're talking like lack of awareness with ADHD. I mean, what time do they even have to be aware of that? You know what I mean? James, I saw you got your hand up. I mean, do you have any thoughts on that or anything you want to contribute?

Jim: 14:24

Well, I want to share actually what my sister wrote my ADHD sister. Her name's Katie because I told her I was going to be doing this podcast. And I, you know, did she have any thoughts about growing up in our family and did that being Puerto Rican that had that affected us with our neurodivergence? And she wrote well, nothing super in particular because. But I will say, because it is a cultural thing in Latino families, is the teasing. Outsiders may think it's mean, but it's always done out of love. Like calling our sister, other sister, Kelly, Blanca, you know, white. So like my, me and my sister have my mom's coloring Katie have my mom's coloring. Kelly has my mom's facial features, but my dad's skin color. So she's when we were, mom would go grocery shopping, like my mom looks like Maria from Sesame Street she would, oh, good. Oh, who's this kid? You're babysitting. And, you know, my mom be like that's my daughter. Are also our grandmother would call 1 of my cousins as a baby. You know, a little chubby. And so my sister. Keeps writing and in regards to neurodivergence with rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, sometimes it hurt and it made me feel unloved, even though I knew I was. Also something that happens in Latino families is just the non accepting acceptance. And she wrote, watch the Saturday Night Live skits with Pedro Pascal as a Latino mom. Yeah. Oh, my baby does not have depression. He just gets sad sometimes. Yeah. Or, or she writes literal quotes from our family. That's just the way he or she is shrugging his shoulders. I think a lot of Latino kids don't mask around their families because their behavior is just accepted, even though not understood. And, you know, like, yeah, I was known as the, the nerd in the family, the geek. I was into, like, comic books. I was just, I was a little weird, but okay, you know, but we love you. You know, like, we don't understand your weirdness. And like, my best friend in high school. He once said to me and I quote, Jim, you're the weirdest person I know, but that's why I love you. And I like having you around. And, and so Julio, like, when you said your mom, you know, being accepting of who you are and just giving you that love that, you know, that was there even in our family, even if there wasn't understanding.

Marc: 17:46

Oh man. I think Shane. I think we might make this like a four part series up so many different directions I can go.

Shane: 17:53

So I want to, for the podcast listeners out there, I want to sit here and say something Jim has. The brightest green goatee I have ever seen on a person. It is absolutely amazing. And I just need y'all to understand this. But no, I, I just, that's all I wanted to say as far as that was concerned for what's for the podcast.

Marc: 18:14

Oh man, that is the best interruption you have ever done. It has nothing to do with what he was saying.

Shane: 18:22

I've been looking at it for like, for 15 minutes now, and I'm just like, I have to say something or I'm just going to explode.

Jim: 18:30

And, and, and what's, what's funny is like when When I was younger, I had hair hair down to my shoulders, curly, like beautiful hair and curls that women pay money for. But, you know, I'm a musician, you know, I've played on stages all over the country, but now I'm a dad and, you know, how can I be cool for my kids? And my girls were like, can you dye your beard? And I've done it pink, blue, multiple colors. And obviously this is for a St. Patrick's day. Yeah. And my daughters do Irish dancing. So I played guitar while they did a performance at their school. So that's what this was for.

Marc: 19:02

That's awesome. That's awesome. I love that.

Shane: 19:06

Change. Can we tangents real quick? And this is for, this is for all three of you, and this is just me being super curious, because Jim, with your background being Irish Puerto Rican, and Julio, with you growing up where you did y'all celebrate all of the holidays? Like, like growing up, was that a, was that a major thing? Because whenever I think about the Hispanic culture is like that, my uncle who married my aunt, he was Hispanic and every year, like. Everyone came together like four or five times a year from like hundreds of miles apart to come together and have these gigantic like, like backyard barbecue front yard was like had all the kids playing and then All the women were in the kitchen, and it was just this huge mess of people who were just having fun. Was that something that y'all really experienced a lot of?

Marc: 20:06

I'm actually really glad that you brought that up, Shane, because there's a powerful point that we can get into on just holiday events, like, all together. And I'm curious to see if any of you two relate. But in my experience, to answer your question directly, Shane, I mean, there, there, there have been definitely holidays, like, I mean, like, Easter, for example, like, I have yet to meet, like, anyone in my family who acknowledges that day. But, and we'll do, like, Christmas on Christmas Eve. I don't know if y'all relate to that, but, like, Christmas is just another day for us here. But, When we would get together, we would get together, like people would like travel and everything like that. And we would see everybody. And that time was always a time that I, that I dreaded. And I promised like with this podcast, I do want to get into the positive aspect of things. And I, I really don't want to have that victim mentality field, but I'm going to temporarily step into that space. But when those holiday seasons would occur, That's when the comparing would happen to like the cousin who is well organized and a straight A student and everything like that and maybe doing well in his job and everything like that. And, you know, and I would look at myself and think that I'm, that I'm doing something terrible, but the one that would, that this would really impact is actually my mother. Not even because she didn't love me or anything like that, but because. She felt the whole time that, and mind you, she didn't know about like, what ADHD was like, but it would like impact her self confidence. It's like, why is my son struggling with school? And, you know, like, what am I doing that's wrong? And yeah, I mean, just, just thinking about that time, it, I just, I just thought a lot about comparing myself to others, like the shame I would get for not being interested in some of the same things. Like James, you talked about how you were into comic books. I mean, can you tell that Batman is my thing? You know, I, I was, I was always that like nerdy and like weird kid and everything like that. And you know, those, those times were definitely a little bit challenging, but what, what do y'all have to say on that? I guess we'll start off with you Julio.

Julio: 22:23

All right, man. I, I don't remember much. I think that due to the, you know, being 1st generation here, like parents that they were still trying to assimilate. They were still trying to figure things out and. And then again, I don't think they had much time to figure things out really because there were just work, work, work and more work. So I do remember the Christmas Eve. Definitely. Like, we would we wait until 12 PM, you know, and then here, having the Mexican background that the tomales we'll just wait until, you know, whatever midnight and then start opening our presence.

Jim: 22:53

So, my family, you know, my family, it was big. I am in my generation. I'm 1 of 18. My mom is 1 of 7. So, our family get togethers are like, 25 for for Christmas is small. We are you mentioned tomales? Puerto Ricans have pasteles. You know, meat and mashed plantains and, you know, I remember making those every Christmas. It's like a 2 day affair of everyone taking turns mashing yucca and plantains and making this mixture and then tying them up and cooking. We would cherish like our family allotment and, you know, put them in the freezer and, and save them. So I think having that big family, just like I have friends. Built in, you know, my cousins were my first friends and my family is a little different Julio, in that my mom and her generation, they weren't raised bilingual. My parents, my grandparents kept like Spanish as a language between them. They wanted their kids to assimilate a number of my. Ants have went back and learn Spanish, in their adult year. So, like, 2 or 3 of my aunts are fluent. So my, you know, on 1 level, my family is, it was very Americanized, but, like, you look at my aunts and uncles, they're not, the olive skinned and you can tell, you get the, well, where are you guys really from? So we, we try to get together a lot. Some of my aunts and uncles moved away, but like a good number of us live in Long Island, but we hawk and so, we would try to get together often as a family and multiple times during the year.

Marc: 24:27

And do you relate as far as the, the comparing yourself thing or,

Jim: 24:32

I, I don't think we had that, like, competition in our family or like that. It was always like, what, what No, we always share what we were doing, you know, be it academically or activities. And we, I think I was fortunate in having a family that was just really well, everyone has their gifts and. You know, you should pursue them. I have cousins who are artistic and can draw like one of my, one of my cousins ended up working for Martha Stewart for a while and, you know, decorating and like, I don't have that skill, you know, but I'm the musician of the family. And, I got my degrees in music. So we were always pushed and our individuality celebrated.

Marc: 25:09

That's awesome. Cool. Love that. We talked early on about, like, a lot of the the struggles that we face being due to lack of awareness and information out there on. Navigating ADHD. I mean, where do we even, where do we even start with that? What does taking step forward look like there? Like, is, is it a political thing of, of many of our parents having to work two jobs and, and struggling to make it week, week by week? I mean, what is it here?

Jim: 25:42

Well, I mean, I don't know how it is in like public schools now. One, we send our daughters to a private school because my wife is Jewish. So they go to a Jewish day school. So actually, side note, when, you know, I said to my grandmother, oh, I'm marrying someone Jewish, she was like, no problem, mijo, just tell me when, you know, when the wedding is, I'll be there. Is, is public awareness of ADHD, you know, in, in kids, are they getting identified earlier? Are there, are we still having this misconception that it's just, you know, bouncing boys and then it shows up differently in girls? I'd like to think as a whole, maybe there is, you know, and I don't since my kids go to a school where they're not really it's not their school is not diverse. They get, they encounter. Cultural diversity in their summer camps, I've seen the statistic. Yes, people of color are not getting diagnosed as much, but I have to think it's. Hopefully it'll be better in schools than it was back in the 80s when I was, you know, in elementary, middle school.

Marc: 26:42

It is, yeah. It's grown in that way. We're still, we still got some work to do, but It's definitely growing. Julio.

Julio: 26:50

I think that, you know, I'm also an ADHD coach and going through training people get diagnosed and oh, my God, they're there. That's what I did. So, basically, I got diagnosed at 35 by 20 years. I started going back to college, but at 35, I actually got diagnosed, which is. 14 years ago. Anyway, so I when I got diagnosed, I basically it's funny because I saw them in my training. That's what they did. They're like, oh, my God, I'm diagnosed as explains everything. So they start to do a whole bunch of research. So that's that was me in 2010. Like, I'm in research book. I mean, we would have been in my other room. You would probably see. 300 books, and they're all, you know, psychology, ADHD, personal development. So I think there's a lot out there. There's TikTok, there's YouTube. And then, the doctors, Dotson and Barkley and all these other folks that are doing the actual research, so I think for me, there's, seems like there's a lot out there. I just don't know that. I don't know what folks wanna do with that from, I mean, and again, this is just my perspective on, on when I go on YouTube and,'cause, you know, a bunch of a d ADHD stuff pops up because, the algorithm or whatever. So I think it's a matter of what happens when, I'm 16 and oh, neurodiverse or this, or that? And then now I kind of like that might be me. Like, what does 1 do in that, you know, depending on again, depending on the awareness of the family, right? Because at 16, you can't just say, oh, I'm going to go get diagnosed because that's what I did at 35. I said, I'm going to get diagnosed. But at 16, what do you do? What do you do at 12? And so, and do they even want to get diagnosed, right? Or do they even, or, and then, you know, we want to follow the crowd when we're like, I remember wanting to be with the here. They call them the homies. You know, we want to be with the homies. The homies are doing their thing. I don't want to do like, what would I want to go a book? What would I want to be a bookworm? You know what I mean? Yeah, because, you know, in the, in the barrio, in the hood, we're doing other things. We're not doing reading and writing. I mean, I was, The neutral guy, he was like, I never wanted like to be doing bad things. I also want I want to do good things. And when they did the bad things, I would always like, make an excuse. You know, I got to go do this real quick. I'll meet you guys later. So that kind of saved me and mom was again. Mom was always in the background that you would hear that voice, don't get in trouble. Don't, go hang out with those guys. And so again, like, wow, this is, this, this podcast is like really bringing, like, I never had thought about it as much as. Having that support, you know what I mean? How, how important support is. And so the voice was always there and I think that saved me a lot. So again, like, I don't I don't know that. I mean, you know, I know people in the UK that in, in, in other areas coaches there and, and it's really getting there. Right? And a lot of people are becoming more aware, but here in the U. S. I think that it's, it's believing that there is help out there and 1 to get that help I think is very important versus like, ah, that's just a bunch of nonsense. Yeah, you know, being a little more open. I think that would be key to me.

Marc: 29:51

No doubt. Yeah, that's a good point. And, times are way different now, too. I mean, we, as an organization, the men's ADHD support group, we reach 17, 000 people through social media for free without charging. You know what I mean? And, and that's, that's a good way to use social media. And information has become much more accessible. And the process that started when I was a teen, but it's definitely gotten so far. So that's a really good point. I mean, my, my two cents on it is and I'll give a shout out to my friend. Cam he's the host of a podcast called Translating ADHD. They're, they're a top five podcast for people with ADHD. But, he did this awesome series where, like a month or two, He was highlighting people of color, like he was bringing in like he brought in my friend John Hazelwood, who does work for black men with ADHD. He had me speak on it and things like that. What I think is beneficial is when it comes to these leaders with ADHD books, you know, you mentioned Julio, you have like a, like a library, you know what I mean? When it comes to big ADHD platforms on YouTube and things like that my words of encouragement would always be to understand that a person of color has a voice and giving people like us platforms To share this message and reach somebody who was probably just like us and probably a little bit stuck in their head when it comes to lacking in self confidence and whatnot. It can really make a difference for the better. And there's no such thing as too much of it. You know what I mean? Like Julio, I'm an ADHD coach too. I hear that you're a coach and I think great. There's more of us, there's, there's millions and millions of people diagnosed with ADHD and it's a more of us, the better type of thing. And on the flip side too, if you're somebody who has a voice, I mean, share that thing. You know what I mean? Even if you are doing an Instagram live with only 10 people watching, if you're impacting those 10 people for the better, then that's a positive step forward, you know?

Jim: 32:08

Listening to you to it brought up, like, 2 thoughts in my mind were that I think with my family, it was, we just didn't know about ADHD. My aunts and uncles all cared all 1 of the best for us and I think of my. Oldest cousin who's sadly, took his life back in April of 2005. I'm sorry. And he had been struggling with mental health issues his entire life. But looking at it, we think, well, he may have been undiagnosed ADHD. So that all the treatment for depression wasn't getting at the root cause of the issues in his life. And it's not. Because his mother or any of us in the family didn't love him enough, you know, his mother didn't deny him going to therapy we did not know probably what the root of his, his mental pain was, so that that was 1 thought. And the other thought was being multicultural, I was a bridge in my community. Like, I was thinking about, growing up you know, I'd hang out with the Latino kids. My friends. Omar, Denny, Jose, Rodolfo, and then I'd go and easily hang out the white kids in my town, with names like Paul, Josh, and, all the typical white names, and I was fortunate that I was accepted in both groups and neither group said, you don't belong here. My friends who are Puerto Rican never said to me, oh, you're not Puerto Rican enough. So I was blessed in that, you know, the acceptance and I think I told my niece who's Puerto Rican, Irish and black, she's felt that in her growing up that she was not enough for any of those groups. And I say. Well, that's where you turn around and say, no, I choose you and you get to be the bridge between these groups. And I think more of us who are multicultural come along. That's what's going to happen. And we'll change the culture of our respective groups for the better. It's amazing. Love that.

Marc: 34:08

All right. What's if you were able to go back in time and give yourself a piece of advice when you were at struggling at your worst with ADHD, what would that be? For me. I would tell myself that you underperforming in school, the disorganized room, the struggles with self confidence that doesn't come from a place of you being broken, it comes from a place of you simply not understanding how your system works. Yeah. And having been taught how everyone else's system works, you just need to understand what your strengths are and how to navigate the different challenges you face and you will see how far you can excel. Yeah,

Jim: 35:07

I think I would go for. I think a lot of my problems in my life came from impulsivity. And I look back and there's like, plenty of times I should have died, like, you know, taping pennies to railroad things, or I jumped into the mud underneath of a bridge in a river near our home, try it and show my friends. Oh, that's solid ground. Well, I sunk up to mud to my chest. I could have, like, really injured myself. going back. This wasn't a thing back then, but, you know, teaching mindfulness teaching that pause. Think about the effects of what your choices will be. Yeah, I know they're teaching that to young kids now in school. So it's mindfulness is a thing in the in general culture. Now. I wish I had that. Going back all the way to 1980, you know, like when I was five, that would have been nice to have that then. Julio.

Julio: 36:02

Yeah. Everything you guys said. I would say it's your own unique way of learning, just keep doing it your way. Do your thing, you know, ask questions. And I think that, I mean, as an ADHD for me, I always had like, for whatever reason, this instinct that this is right, that's wrong. So if I were to ask a question, I was like, that's not quite it. And I would ask, you know, ask a lot of questions period anyway, and so I could figure it out. I was a go getter. I was pushed. I was like, I didn't settle. I mean, I think that the only thing that kind of got me was the language, right? It's kind of like, you're being spoken to in this language that you don't quite understand. So you just got to have to figure it out through seeing things or like, okay, did it, did it like this? I remember watching TV and, I just watched it for the way people moved and they did things so again, it's just, this is how you are. You, your unique way and just keep doing it your way. You'll figure it out.

Marc: 36:56

Love that. Now, what about to a listener who is fully related to everything that we're, we're all saying here and just got diagnosed with ADHD or maybe not even diagnosed yet, but feels they have it. Where do they start?

Jim: 37:18

Well, start with this. Okay. Whether or not you have ADHD does not change the fact that you are lovable. You are capable of loving and capable of being loved, so, you know, I know so many of us struggle in relationships, but our worth, our, our basic worth of as a being does not change with how your brain is wired. And then I, I think. You know, that framing the challenges our ADHD brain has. A lot of those challenges can be positives, you know, and so the whole idea of learning how to work with your brain, rather than against it. That applies for anyone, but when I was. Talking with 1 of my mentors recently, we she was the registrar at the college. I went to, and she was like, Jim, when you were there, we didn't, even if I thought you had, where it came across as was an incredible amount of enthusiasm when you were excited about something, like, was something you're interested in. Your enthusiasm was off the charts, and that was infectious for other people. So learning how to frame these challenges as positives, or, you know, can have positive sides to it is I think the most important thing part of the reason my, my, my wife loves me. Is my ADHD, even though we didn't know what it was. I'm the one who's always seeking fun in our relationship coming up with ideas for dates, you know, that it's not all stuff that I want to do. It's fun. It's, finding out stuff that she wants to do. It's fun and planning that date. Well, that's direct out of my novelty sinking for ADHD. So those two things. It's awesome.

Marc: 39:05

Shane sent me a message as you were saying that saying, I swear to God, Mark, I've heard you say that exact same thing because I believe the exact same thing. It's no doubt. I mean, it's like when we think about Our lives as someone with ADHD and and the the comments that we've been met with and the self dialogue that we often always have. It's, we're lazy, we're just not applying ourselves, we're not enough, all these type of things. So when you're talking about like actually learning to navigate the thing, it's like half the battle is learning to build self confidence and seeing your worth. beyond learning how to do laundry. It's a self, it's a self taught game that a lot of us are, are playing here. And that's just the truth. We're lovable. And the people that we compare themselves to, like, they have their own set of flaws too. We might just not be seeing it so much on a, on a highlight reel, like social media, but That's just 100%. Well said, James. Thank you.

Jim: 40:06

And, and I think, seeing representation of us in popular media. I, I mentioned, um, Maria from Sesame Street, you know, that she looks like she could have been one of my aunts. My, like my top three guitarists, but like one of the biggest inspirations for me is Carlos Santana. He's, Mexican and, but, you know, growing up on Long Island, you know, all my white friends, you know, all these rockers, you know, yeah, I love Led Zeppelin and, you know, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, but like, I was able to latch onto Carlos Santana. There's someone Latino, like me making music and rock music and leaning into being Hispanic. So, like, now with, social media and stuff we can, and people being able to talk about, we're seeing people, I have ADHD, Justin Timberlake, I'm thinking of just musician off the top of my head who has ADHD, you know, 30 percent of musicians and people in the arts are neurodivergent. Like there was a recent study about that. That's a lot. Yeah and then those who are open about how their brain works, I'm thinking of like Selena Gomez talking about her mental mental health issues. No, that's just inspiring to, anyone, you know, there's, there's some girl out there who heard her talk about that, who feels heard and seen and there's someone like me on up there.

Marc: 41:26

Yeah, no doubt about it. Well said. Julio?

Julio: 41:31

Yeah, I'll give you my take because I think it wasn't until I actually got serious that things changed for me. It actually picked up the phone and said, I called the psychologist from a pay phone. Remember that that's back in the days in the pay phone. Yeah. And I was serious about this. I'm serious about making a change and it all started for me. It all started there because again, I was, you know, I was the leader of my group. I was a clown. For me, didn't get me anywhere. You know what I mean? It just got me more of like dopamine. And so, Hey, so if I'm making people laugh, if I'm people pleasing, everybody's liking me, why change everything is cool. I just keep my little warehouse job and do this and do that and not really grow. Right. So it was until like, I'm going to learn this language well, so people can respect me. And so I would say that there's help, there's support. The ball is in your court. You have a choice. You always have a choice. And so what would you like to do? It's awesome.

Marc: 42:37

Man, Shane, we got a bunch of good clips from this, this podcast episode right here.

Shane: 42:41

That last one that Julio just did. I'm just going to like,

Marc: 42:46

yeah.

Shane: 42:48

Also so Jim, whenever you sat here and you said that first phrase, everyone deserves loves. I love hearing that. I loved hearing that it was, it just echoes a lot of the greatest minds out there. Whenever they talk about those things by greatest minds. I mean, Mark,

Marc: 43:05

yeah yeah, no, no doubt. But all while said, I mean, as we're wrapping up are you to both both active on social media for people to go ahead and find you if they want to learn more or connect with you.

Jim: 43:20

Yeah, I'm on Instagram Kaizen Guitar Facebook. I do have a Twitter. I have, I've been taking a break from Twitter. I think I'm there under Jim O'Gara. I'm in the Men's ADHD Support Group on Facebook. I've been past couple of weeks trying to limit my social media time to Get more productive stuff. Like I'm playing guitar and my sister's wedding. I got like songs. I need to learn. I do have a gig coming up so Like yeah, my cousin, you know, it's like oh you should try this video game and i'm like wait You know, I have adhd because you have adhd as well. I'll get too involved with it And i'm playing my guitar It's awesome.

Marc: 44:00

Yeah. I know what that's like. It's like the, the ADHD interest level is like either completely on or like not interested at all. So my girlfriend thought it was a good idea and I usually don't play video games for that very reason because they would consume so much of my life. But she thought it was a good idea for me to learn a little bit about Fortnite, which I never thought I would ever care for or be interested in, but I tried it. And like, now I'm like, I have to like go a week without it. Cause But anyways yeah, cool. Thank you for sharing your social media Julio, where can people find you if they want to connect?

Julio: 44:35

Not yet. I'm in the process of getting there's a lot going on right now with, with what I'm doing, so, got that ADHD thing, like 20 things to do and got to sort them out. So, I mean, if anybody wanted to reach me, I'm also on the Men's ADHD Support Group Julio Rojas. So somebody, send me a message or whatever. Yeah. But, I love talking. Definitely in the future. I will be out there for the I mean, 14 years of studying ADHD and personal development. I got to do something

Marc: 45:01

No doubt, no doubt. And the voice is needed. Definitely the two of you. So it's amazing that you two will do this. And, thank you everybody for listening. This has been a really fun podcast to record, and I look forward to talking with everybody soon.