Building the Community We Needed - Divergently Founder Kendra Koch

I'm joined by Kendra Koch, founder of Divergently a community platform for late diagnosed neurodivergent women.

We start, as always, with Kendra's motherhood story- which, like my own, is so intertwined with her ADHD diagnosis and realisation. She offered amazing insights on the importance of listening to mother's and their intuition as well as the lost aspect of community in mothering.

This was such a wonderful conversation and it felt like a catch up with an old friend - even tough we've only just met. That's the magic that happens when you get two neurodivergent people together.

Follow on Socials:
Instagram: @itskendrakoch   
Instagram: @joindivergently
LinkedIn: KendraKoch
JoinDivergently.com

Resources Mentioned:
The third-party testing sites

• https://labdoor.com/

• https://www.nsfsport.com/our-mark.php

Thank you for listening!

If you like this episode please share, rate, review, and subscribe.
Each time you do our little community grows!

Coaching and free resources:
AttemptingMotherhood.com

Attempting Motherhood Community (7-day all access trial +20% off first month in The Membership) The community space is completely free, but you can trial access to all spaces for 7 days and then decide if you want to join The Membership. 

Join the Community

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, medical professional, or mental health professional.
I am sharing my lived experience. If you relate to any of the content in these episodes, do your own research and speak to a medical professional if needed.
There are free resources available in my links:
 https://linktr.ee/samattemptsmotherhood

If you enjoyed this episode please share, subscribe, rate, and review. Each time you do our little community grows.

Follow Sam:
https://www.tiktok.com/@samattemptsmotherhood
https://www.instagram.com/samattemptsmotherhood/

Follow the podcast:
https://www.instagram.com/attemptingmotherhood.pod/

For more information and resources head to: https://linktr.ee/samattemptsmotherhood

Buy me a coffee (an opportunity to show appreciation for the content you've enjoyed).

Transcript

 Friends. I am so excited for today's conversation. 

 I am joined by Kendra Koch. She has taken. Her many, many years of experience from Silicon valley and she is now creating an app and a website and a community for us late diagnosed women. It's going to be launching spoiler. She announces in this podcast for the first time ever by the 1st of January, it's called divergently.com. 

You can go there now. Join the waitlist. It's in the shownotes.

In this episode, you are going to hear all of the amazing stuff that her and her team are putting together for divergently.com. You'll hear a bit more about her story and her background and how she's harnessing all of that. And the lessons she's learned along the way. To create an amazing space for us to come together as a community. 

I was so excited for this chat, Kendra and I actually. I guess you would say digitally bumped into each other on threads. I saw her talking about divergently and I had to learn more. So we've connected over message. I think what she's doing is amazing and I am so pumped 

for it to come to life.

So without further ado. Let's jump in. 📍   

Well,  thank you so much again for taking time. We normally start with motherhood journeys and that's what we've talked about starting with, but I think yours very much like mine are very much interconnected. So if you want to start with your motherhood journey, and then we'll just springboard and pop around to like, All the other stuff. 

Yeah, that sounds great. Motherhood touches on everything we do. I find it to be a really excellent starting point. My journey was in some ways, very typical in some ways, really not. I think I had my daughter, I have one child. She's four right now. I had her when I was 35. So I think in the grand scheme that's considered Late, to have a kid, but I was living in the Bay Area where nobody has kids.

It was pretty normal in the context of where I was living, but definitely not in the context of where I grew up, where people have kids a lot younger. Yeah, it sounds like you could relate to that.  And I have four younger siblings. And so yeah, oldest daughter did a lot of, caretaking for my siblings.

I was an early childhood educator for about six years. And so when I got pregnant, I was thinking to myself, this will be easy.  I know what I'm doing. I have so much experience and it was not easy. And I did not know what I was doing.  Mostly because I have ADHD, which I didn't get diagnosed until I was  pregnant. 

And 

interesting. Yeah. 

Yeah. So I was really unprepared for that. And most of the child development stuff I know through my past work and but I wasn't prepared with how motherhood would affect me as a person and how that was actually going to be the hardest part of motherhood. So yeah, I had my daughter, we, she was a month old and we were living in the Bay area, but it was the pandemic.

There were forest fires. There was just a lot going on and the city was crumbling around us. And. I couldn't, I just couldn't be there anymore. And so we moved with her  and she was a month old to Atlanta, Georgia, where we live now. I  husband's parents live here. And so we thought, okay, let's get some support. 

And I also was not prepared for that. Like I thought we would move and it would be where we would get support and help, but I didn't really factor in the fact that I was leaving  a community that I had built for the last 12 years, all of my friends. The places I hung out, the arts and startup scenes that I was involved in, and really starting fresh with also a new baby. 

And it's still being the tail end of the pandemic. People were not really hanging out. I was really just stuck at home with her and 

Did  you move in with your in laws? Sorry. 

We, oh, that's a good question. We did when we first came, we lived with them for about a month and then we moved next door to them.

Oh, cool. 

So basically still the same. 

Yeah, so we were really close by and it was helpful in a lot of ways and difficult in a lot of ways. I think like all family relationships.  

I think especially to the dynamics of being not just a new mom, but a first time mom, and you're figuring out how you want to do things.

I think all of us go in with these preconceived ideas and then like reality hits, right? Like, I had very strong ideas on how I wanted to parent. Before I had my daughter,  but you're figuring all that out and you and your partner are figuring out like your family values and what from your being parented, you want to take forward and what you might want to do differently.

And that's all really hard and complicated. And in your case made even more complex by having your in laws, like essentially over your shoulder,  which like, for me, I always say that was as much as I really struggled with.  all of our, so we don't have any family near us at all. My family's still in the U.

S. and my partner's family is like eight hours away.  But I said the one upside of that is we could really do things exactly how we wanted with very minimal input from  the elders, if you want to say.  Whereas for people that have, Elders very involved. It can be even harder to be like, well, what is my decision as far as what we're doing parenting and what is being put on me?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, too, we're in a unique time, whereas parents, especially as mothers were bombarded with input, right? Like, we're told nonstop how to be what to do. What are the best practices? And. I think it's great to understand what the science says or, what best practices are. But it is impossible to follow best practices all the time.

And that kind of burden. I definitely took on some of that burden. And I think I wanted to get it right. A lot of that just because my childhood Didn't feel like it went so well. And so I didn't want to replicate some of that with my daughter. So it's extra,  I'm going to do this,  which is ridiculous.

I think we  have to be so good about filtering out all of those. external voices and really knowing what we need for our families, what our values are. And yeah, it's really hard when it's your in laws or your immediate family and you live right next door to them. It's hard if you don't too and you have a relationship with them where you want to preserve that and adding kids sometimes can complicate it. 

Yeah, absolutely. Even in my case, like my mom is, Literally half a world away and I would talk to her and tell her about struggles and like for context, my daughter was like, I don't even want to say contact napper. But she was just a, she was.  Always, like, 24 7, we ended up co sleeping, bed sharing, because it was the only way she would sleep, and even still, at, like, three and a half, she's in our bed, which I'm fine with, but it's all, there's always, she's always touching me in some way, and as a little baby.

She would nap on me, like she just hardly ever would be put down. And my mom trying to be helpful, of course, she was like, well, sometimes you just have to put her down. Like she might cry, but you just have to put her down and, she'll cry. And crying for me is a really big trigger partially also from that, like, I, I want us to have a secure bond and trying to be quote unquote perfect.

And I remember a day like where I was just,  really struggling and my mom said that and I was just like I just don't want to fuck her up like I don't want to fuck her up. I don't want her to just sit there and cry and have that like mess everything up, and I'm saying this about like a three month old baby. 

What I know I knew then and I  You know, still keep in mind, but like your bond with your child evolves and what I try and tell moms who have say teenagers and they're like, well, whatever's done is done and I'm like, you can still develop a secure bond like that can flux and change just like it can be, ruptured. 

It can change.  It's so hard when you just have all of this information  and you take it in, but a little bit in your head is like. Yeah. Just, you don't understand, I just have to do it this way, and that's part of like, we just have to figure out  what we're doing on our own, and sometimes I think it's hard for our  surrounding people, support people, whether that's partners or family, to see us struggle, because they think, if you just listen to me, it would be easier.



Yeah.  And also, mothers are so in tune with their babies. Nobody actually really knows except the mom a lot of times I feel the amount of doctors.  And friends and  family members who kept reassuring me that my baby was fine, started to make me so angry because  she immediately latched when she was born and was feeding fine, but I felt like something was wrong.

And everyone just kept telling me you're just a worried first time mom you're just a worried first time mom. And. I really felt like something was wrong and kept bringing it up and kept bringing it up. And after three lactation consultants, a midwife, a doctor, a pediatrician,  we realized she actually wasn't drinking and she was just dropping weight like crazy.

And I had her in the midwife's office and the midwife's like running to the back. Got a expired formula, shoved it in her mouth and made her chug it basically because she was so scared about how much weight she had dropped. But I had been daily calling people asking for help. And all I got back was you're just a worried first time mom.

And I started to feed myself that message. Maybe I am, maybe she's fine, but then I couldn't get out of my head. No, something's really wrong. And it's really frustrating because I know that is not an experience that's unique to me. 

I talked to 

so many mothers and I think we really need to listen to moms if they're anxious or they have anxiety or whatever.

And that's adding to a circumstance. Okay. But we should still listen anyway, because The risk of not listening is, in my opinion, too high.  Moms are so in tune with their babies as we, we're, we've evolved to be. So I don't know why  we've gotten away from that, just trusting that moms know, even if it doesn't make sense or no one else can see it.

And taking it into context, too, like you said, like, maybe it's someone who has pre existing anxiety. Okay, is the mom Like, from a medical professional standpoint, you can look and be like, is this mom anxious about everything? Like, will they not leave their house because they're worried about getting in a car wreck and will they, or is it just this one thing?

Because more often than not, in that case, it's that one thing. And it's because you can tell somehow  something isn't jiving, and when they, and I know, especially with breastfeeding, a lot of the times, people  Things like tongue ties and lip ties are missed, and they might check your latch, and like, the child might actually be latching okay, but they might still have a tie that's influencing how much they're taking in, or something else going on, and they'll be like, well, your baby's losing weight, you just have to give them a bottle.

Which, I don't have anything against bottles, but like, if you really feel like you ., Want to, and you can breastfeed, especially if it's something that you really want to do. Then they should be looking at how to support you and investigating everything instead of just like your baby's lost weight.

It seems like you're latching fine, so you're not producing enough milk. You have to put your baby on F formula. Like it's not, it should not just be this linear write  off.  

Yeah. And in our case, my daughter would not drink out of a bottle. I tried  and she wouldn't. So I'm like, my baby's going to starve.

Like we need to figure something out. And she did have a time die. And once we got that corrected, it was fine. But if people had looked into it more, the first time I complained, that whole experience would have been so much easier. And then I hear about, the rates of postpartum depression and, Like postpartum depression is not something wrong with the mom.

It's the failure of our system to support moms. I was starting to get depressed because everyone's telling me I'm anxious and like, worried over protective mom. Nobody's listening to me. I'm up all night trying to feed this baby that won't eat.  Who wouldn't get depressed? Like if you're not getting sleep, you're scared about your baby's well being and everybody's essentially gaslighting you like well intentioned.

Nobody was trying to do that, but that was what happened as a result. And yeah, I feel like modern motherhood is a little bit of this experience where moms are put in a situation that leads to mental health. Issues and then blamed for having mental health issues and that doesn't feel right to me at all.

Yeah, 

and I have to and this is like not to call you out in any way. I just think it's a really important part of the conversation of there is privilege in the fact that you were even able to see lactation consultants and midwives and several doctors because not everyone would be able to do that. And it just leaves then the mom, like you said, feeling depressed, feeling like they're failing as a mother because they can't  do this thing that we're told is so natural, but it's actually like so flippant. 

And then, trying to figure out a solution without having the resources to be able to actually then, get all of the everything investigated. 

Yeah. And that should always be named. It's absolutely true. I had access. I was working in health and wellness. I worked in Silicon Valley at the forefront of health for my entire career.

I knew who to go to. I knew how to navigate the medical system. I had enough money to do it. I had a time off work and paid maternity leave.  If I didn't have those things, I would not be okay today. I would that whole experience would have absolutely wrecked me.  And  I think about it in two ways, which is What happens for all the people who don't have access and what can we do to expand access?

But also why are we so dependent on so many commercial solutions?  Because a lot of times it's like, well, you need a consultant for this and an expert for that and a device for this and a product for that. And in like, historically, we relied on community and it's like, shared knowledge within those communities that's been handed down through through different generations.

And we've lost that. And so now we're so on our own little islands and we have to go out and buy wellbeing. And that's also a fail.

 We have to outsource these things.  But we also just used to be so much more involved in community and familial stuff that  growing up you and I would have seen several women breastfeeding.

We would have seen several births. We would have helped take care of the little ones. And as an individual mother. We have it. We know we have it so much harder, but like, we are so on our own that if we were to go back, let's say, I don't know, a hundred years,  I think of my grandma. That's not a hundred years ago, but  I think of my grandma.

She had three under three and a half by the time she was 20 years old, but she had her parents. She had her sister. She had her cousins, her family. So when I think about that now, it makes me like want to have my heart in my throat a little bit of how would I ever cope, but because she had so much support that I could even ever imagine.

And when it comes to things like breastfeeding, like I said, you and I would have seen everyone. We know breastfeeding because it was just part of.  That like, I don't know. If you call it like the sisterhood, right? Like, we just had this female community where we talked about these things and sometimes it was like secret women's business and that has its own problematic history.

But at the same time,  we would have been told. Oh, okay. Maybe try this with your baby. Maybe do this even things further in life, like menopause, like that was secret women's business, but at least someone was talking about it, which we haven't been for the last 30 years. And now we're just now starting to, but again, we've outsourced it.

I'm learning from social media and then going to my mom and being like, what was your situation? Like, 

Yeah, it's backwards. So much. Yeah, I'm grateful we have those things. Like, I'm really grateful for Western medicine. When we need it, but it shouldn't be the only option.  

100%.  Yeah. So you said you got diagnosed when you were pregnant, which I find so interesting because for me,  I felt like I still, when I was pregnant, didn't know I was ADHD, but I felt really good  and I know hormones, you're especially estrogen, progesterone, they incrementally incline and they peak at the end of your pregnancy and then they plummet, fall off a cliff when the baby comes out, which a lot of the time.

Is what people say leads to the, like, baby blues, that three day slump, but I think for us with ADHD, that leads to us just, like, literally unable to cope and lose our mind  for a long while, but especially for that first week. So when you were pregnant, did you get, did you diagnosis and what brought that about? 

Yeah, it's such a good question. I also felt really good when I was pregnant. I think I felt the healthiest and the best I ever felt when I was pregnant. My chronic migraines were completely gone at nine months, no migraines. That was wonderful. But I think my therapist actually knew. That I had ADHD, but I was managing fine.

I had a super structured day. I woke up,  went to yoga, did, I had a remote job already. I had put a lot of accommodations in place without knowing 

that's 

what I was doing just because intuitively I'm like, Oh, I need these things. And I have a suspicion that a lot of Silicon Valley neurodivergent folks. So a lot of the things there are ready.

Neurodivergent friendly, and so it wasn't hard for me really until I had my daughter. I was getting tons of exercise because I was walking everywhere. I didn't have a car. I was meditating every day and doing all the right things, eating well sleeping pretty good,  but  I feel like my therapist, I can't say for sure, but my hunch is that she already knew and she didn't diagnose me because I didn't really need any additional support.

But when she found out I was pregnant, she knew what was coming.  . 

Oh. And told me. 

Yeah. So  she I don't remember her getting into. Like what I would experience when I was pregnant, but she did say, Hey, by the way, you have ADHD. This is a very chill thing that just like



Non chalant  



 yeah. And I was like, okay. And she gave me some books to read about it.

And she had a very

about 

ADHD. Like in asylum, not ADHD and parenthood or motherhood or 

yeah, just in general, like general education. And they were more about how it's not negative. It's just a different way of thinking. And it she didn't want me to feel stigmatized, I think or be freaked out by it.

And I didn't take it seriously at all. I just. thought, okay, that's interesting. I'm about to have this baby, so I'm going to focus on that. And  that was a fail  because the ADHD piece was really relevant after I had my baby. My brain like didn't work at all. I just, Couldn't remember anything. I was so scattered all the constant interruptions, the crack, like the sound  sense, like I'm pretty sensitive to everything.

So the noise constantly being touched, that was a big one for me. Smells like every time I'd have to change a diaper, nearly throw up, just gagging from this. 

I

 don't laugh, but like, I understand. 

Yeah. It's just. I. The sensory overload I experienced was just an entirely new level. And I always knew I was hypersensitive, but after I had a baby, I was really hypersensitive and it got compounded because the house we moved into in Atlanta had a mold.

And so we also got mold toxicity, which luckily we're out of, and I'm pretty much over the healing journey, but that also compounded ADHD symptoms. And. That the sensitivity. And so I was a huge mess  for a while.  

Yeah.  

And do you know if your therapist was neurodivergent or she maybe was just used to working with neurodivergent people from being in Silicon Valley? 

I 

don't think she was or if she was she didn't disclose. She was a clinical psychologist so she did a lot of clinical work prior to opening the practice that she was in and then before that she was an engineer and so she actually had worked in Silicon Valley like and in the tech world. Wow.  Her practice was primarily working with  like tech, people in tech and executives and things like that, because she understood the context of what their lives look like, but also had the clinical experience.

And she, she's an amazing therapist. So smart,  really down to earth. like,  gave me enough pushback, would call me out on my stuff, but not make me feel bad about it. And she worked super strategically in steps. And she also educated me about what she was doing and why, which I really appreciated.

And there's like, an art to find, finding the right therapist for you, but I got lucky with her. I just called a practice and they matched me with her and she was perfect. So 

 

And like you said, she probably, if she had already suspected, and then you tell her you're pregnant, she's like, Oh, okay. Your word world is about to get turned upside down. 

Maybe she could have just stressed how important it was to understand.  But I think again, too, like it really depends on  Your support system and like everything else, those holistic factors that.  I do know some moms that are ADHD and they did not have the same struggles and the same like what just happened that I had.

So I think the whole picture is so important, but it's nice at least that she was like, Hey, here's a piece of the puzzle that you're going to want to look at.  

Yeah, I am really appreciative because I don't think otherwise I would have ever looked at that or known. And it's crazy because I was an early childhood educator, worked with kids who had ADHD.

I have a degree in psychology and I was working at the forefront of health for, yeah, I think I said it over a decade and in genetics, in allergy prevention, in nutrition, in fitness. Pretty much the whole gamut. I interacted with it at some point and still never crossed my mind. I might have ADHD myself and that is unfortunately a really common experience also for women  because I was looking up some statistics the other day and the first long term study on ADHD in women was in 2003. 

So it's like a travesty. Yeah, a lot of 

work to do there.  

And even then, I think another one you're talking about, I don't think it took into account so much age and life season, if you want to call it, because we know there's a difference between someone who's in their early reproductive years, say, like, in their early 20s, and someone who's like me going through perimenopause or postmenopausal.

So all of that is a factor and we need. Desperately so much more research because there is a sex difference and like, this is not a gendered issue, but it is just physiologically when you get hormones in the mix, it does factor in for us. Like, it is such a big.  Big factor, like we know our estrogen and other hormones, but especially estrogen, it plays such a role and impacts our ADHD in such a great way, which is also, I hate the fact of, I don't know what it's like in the States, but here  they want you when you get a diagnosis to show that you showed signs before 12. 

And. If you were someone who started puberty a bit later, or even if you didn't, I started my period when I was 11, so I just barely made that, but even then,  for the first little while, your hormones are figuring themselves out in puberty, and we know that for most girls that have ADHD, it's when we get it.

More into high school that we're really seeing a lot of symptoms. Some you see earlier, of course, but  generalizing across the board for ADHD girls, it's in that teen period when you're really going to see the most disruption.  And it's just, it's such a shame that we still look at all of our diagnostic criteria.

All the diagnostic criteria is based off of. Upper middle class little white boys. But the diagnostic criteria is still looking at it at the lens of a childhood thing when  it doesn't go away.  Like, if anything for women, it probably gets worse as you get older.  

For sure. 

Yeah. And there's so many, I think, confounding, is that the right word?

Confounding influences, especially for girls, like socialization the type of ADHD, like I have inattentive type. So I was very quiet and compliant and everybody loved that. And so why would you intervene if You don't have a behavioral problem, be a less quiet compliant kid. So the boys are more hyperactive typically and more disruptive.

So they're just irritate people more. They're more likely to get a diagnosis,  which is the wrong way to be thinking about it, because then it's like the support is placed on the person. To make other people's needs be met. So it's like, I'm going to support this child so that they don't annoy me or cause problems in my classroom or whatever it is, instead of I'm going to support this child because they need support.

And I think that's a huge piece of, the education that needs to be done is, and would also help more girls get diagnosed earlier.  

It really 

is such an ableist model because it's how much do you impact other people? And then we'll try and build these things so that you're not impacting other people and we still don't really care what's going on for you internally.

I was the same as you. I was quiet and compliant. And yes, I left all of my schoolwork to the very last minute, but I still got it in. And, I graduated with good grades and I coasted through everything. And so no one ever  suspected there was an issue. But internally, there was a lot of issues.

I was just told it was anxiety and depression. 

 Right.  

Yeah. Because why would anyone  look at ADHD because you were a girl? Yeah, I hear that story a ton in my community that I'm building and just in general online. And  it's, I think we're at least at a tipping point where people are starting to understand it better.

So I think that will help. But  it is still hard when you're, An adult woman and you have a kid now that you're responsible for and you're just figuring out. I'm like, Oh, okay, I have this kid and I'm nearly 40 and I'm just figuring out  how my brain works and what my body needs and it feels a little too late, but I guess I'll do it now.

But we have the opportunity, also as moms to who will probably have neurodivergent kids to help them earlier.  

Yeah, well, that's what I look at it like for me.  I'm very much like, I wish I'd known earlier, but I'm glad I know now. I'm glad I know before, I'm 50 or 60, my mom is 66 and we're having conversations and she's realizing that she's most likely ADHD also.

I'm unsure about AuDHD, but like definitely ADHD. And when I look at her life, I'm like yeah.  And my own daughter, she's three and a half, so she's too young for a formal diagnosis, but like, we know it's very, she is.  if not just the hyperactive type, she's definitely combined because it's, we just know that.

But you mentioned your community. So you have taken all of your experience  of working in the tech industry and you're building something that I think is going to be really awesome. So it's called Divergently. Talk a little bit about your I guess inspiration for that and then and you're like My hands. 

Yeah. So hopefully if you're launching soon, I might have to set an actual date to get people. But Divergently is meant to be  like a social safety net for late diagnosed women. So whether it's ADHD or autism or another form of neurodivergency, There really wasn't when I was diagnosed, I got the books from my therapist, but there wasn't really a place where I could go and talk to other women who had.

been through what I was going through.  I didn't even know where to start, honestly. And it's back to what we were talking about with the resources that, I had available to me as a parent. I  had this psychology degree, had all these medical experts in my network and still didn't really know how to navigate my diagnosis or what to do next.

It's like, okay, I have a diagnosis.  It's affecting me now that I have a baby, but what next? 

Where to turn, what to do. 

Yeah, and so most people, and I did this too, go to Google, TikTok, or Instagram, and those can be really helpful, but it's a lot to navigate through, and it doesn't always start at the beginning of where your journey is at, and so  For me, the vision of Divergently was like, I want there to be a one stop shop.

So it's like, you can go and talk to other women who have been through it. Maybe their mentors, they got diagnosed in childhood. They a little bit know the ropes and maybe they're new to the experience and you can talk about. What that's been like. So almost like girlfriends who get it.

And then also having this really vetted space where therapists and neurodivergent affirming professionals,  researchers, et cetera, are weighing in on the conversation and moderating all of the. Content that we produce and the media that we put out so that it's accurate and actionable because that was the other thing, too, is like,  I think you actually do a really great job of providing suggestions and lived experience, but I was finding lots of research.

And lots of lived experience, but nothing that really brought them together. And so that's one of the things that we're trying to do at Divergently, which is emphasize the lived experience and storytelling, but  back it up with the science and research and then advocate for more  research and policy change.

So it's actually really. Will be a pretty straightforward like a community space with great content and really cool people. And experts inside that you will have access to. And then we're putting together a lot of partnerships for all those resources that can be really expensive or hard to find or.

Maybe you don't have them available in your state or where you live so that you can get  help with getting a diagnostic evaluation if you need it. Navigating kind of  the medication trial and error journey  processing. Yeah. There's so many stages like processing grief. So we can do that in like a group therapy format.

And then you mentioned it a couple of times, perimenopause and menopause,  understanding how that's going to affect you, and then being connected to the right resources for that. So  my vision is to connect you to the resources you need and a helpful community at all of kind of the stages that you're going through after a diagnosis.

Could even be before a diagnosis when you're thinking about, do I need one?  

Yeah, because I think a lot of people get A little bit stuck at that point. Like I get the question so many times of like,  I'm an adult. Is it even worth getting a diagnosis? Blah, blah, blah. And like, I will just vehemently say as a woman, especially if you can afford it and you have access to it, absolutely  more so because you have the option of medication and I know medication isn't for everybody.

But also for me, I didn't realize how much the validation from a professional, and in my case, like a psycho, a psychiatrist that's been working in ADHD for 30 years, him telling me, it's such a shame, and you have had a real disservice that no one has picked it up before this, because he knew I'd gone to other people very much like you have. 

That validation is. Incredible. And you can, it just takes the  gaslighting yourself and stop wondering away from it. You have a definitive like, yes, okay. But you mentioned something that I think is so important. All of what you're doing is important, but vetted. Because I love social media. There is so much free information available for people that if they have no, no access to anything else, that is an option.

But the downside is there's a lot of misinformation, especially in this space.  So I love that is like a top priority for you guys. I would assume of course it would be, but I love that is, absolutely something that is. Yeah,  

for me, it's like safety and accuracy are in quality, because  how can you  really make changes to your health if you're trialing and airing everything based off of 1000 videos you've scrolled through that day?

It's just too hard. And so there are some frameworks and tools that we know work.  Let's make it easier to find them and make them accessible. I wish I had it's basically I'm just building all the stuff that I wish I had when I got a diagnosis. And even now that I'm four years in after the diagnosis and still figuring it out.

So I don't at all see myself as the expert, but I do see myself as the person. Like collecting the experts.  So yeah, 

that's what I do too. I think that's what a lot of us do is we just, we take all of this information that we've obviously hyper fixated and gathered and hold together. And then we just build and create the things.

That's what my group coaching started out was, is I was like, I want to hold myself accountable and I'm going to put my hand up and say, I am on this road with you guys. I am not like on a pedestal talking down at you and we're going through it together. And going into like one on one coaching next year.

It's the very much the same thing of like I've learned some things and I can share that with you, but also can validate your experience that, like, it really is hard being a mom with ADHD. So I love that's what you're just bringing everything together. Accessibility wise I would assume there's a cost, but are you going to have tiers or is some stuff going to be free?

Like how, I don't know if you have that all worked out yet, but how, what's the idea for that? 

Yeah. We're trying to make it as accessible as possible. So there will be a cost just because like I have to pay for stuff to get everything made. But there's always free content. Right now, even if you, Sign up at join divergently.

com for our waitlist. You'll be automatically put on our newsletter and all of the best resources and things will go there and links to our partners and things will all go there and that's free. And then we'll have a free public publication that's written by journalists and I have a background in content marketing as well.

So like really incredible writers.  People with journalistic integrity and then scientists who are on our scientific advisory board and we have medical experts as well who review all the content. All of that will be free.  The paid component is the community but we'll also have a scholarship option where we're sponsoring scholarships and I'm working to partner with organizations to sponsor  Seats as well.

So if if you can't afford one, hopefully we can still get you one. And we're trying to keep it like a reasonable price. It's not like what you would be paying for.  If you had to do weekly therapy or, the stuff that can get really pricey and isn't often covered by insurance.

And then also we want to help make a space for creators and coaches and therapists that have businesses around this to also, reach members. And so I haven't like exactly figured out the mechanics of that, but hopefully we can, we're just like the hub. Like you find the stuff and then.

you can go where you feel most comfortable. So lots of ways we can support people and I'm always taking feedback too. If anybody listening has suggestions or something they want to see, please reach out. 

 I think too, obviously it's going to evolve like everything. So what eventually does come out, you're going to add to it.

You're going to edit, you're going to, see what's working and. Continue with that and then maybe  change up some things that don't seem to be jiving and working as well. But I think that's the beautiful part about technology is we have that option. You don't have to just, and this is really hard.

You have not said this, but I'm just assuming you're also a bit of a perfectionist. We'll say recovering perfectionist like me. I'm a poorly recovering perfectionist. 

You can call me that. 

But that's my struggle. When I put something out is feeling like it's set in stone  and trying to remind myself.

And so I'm trying to remind you that like It is going to evolve. It is going to change. You're going to get that feedback from community and be like, great, people love this aspect. And like, nobody really seems to be engaging with this and trying to chop and change.

And customer feedback is so important. And you really have to be listening to it. But the quality of feedback I get from my community is unlike anything I've ever experienced. Ever seen in my entire career, neurodivergent people are the best because  they don't just say, this isn't great. Or I wish I had this.

They're very specific. They give me, they actually like give me steps of like how to fix something. And they give me the context, which I probably just need for my brain anyway. But it's such an enjoyable process for me to get feedback now because it comes,  it just comes in a different package almost. And it comes with a lot of care. 

I can feel that the community members care about the whole experience and the other members and about me and my team, which I've never felt that before in a company. So I 

think that's the beautiful part is  because especially as like, your target demographic, like late diagnosed neurodivergent people, we for so long have longed for a community and long for people to understand us that when we find that even if it's just like a thread of that we hold on to it.

With dear life and we buy into it. So you have this incredible customer buy in already.  And it means that you've seen it in your feedback. People are offering things and sharing with you in a way that you wouldn't get at just some generic. Any other type of app or community or anything. It's really people who have  seen themselves as part of what is being built.

And that is invaluable.  

Yeah. And that's what community really is. So it's like, if we're able to do that and people feel ownership over the space, then. I'm happy. I'm like, my job is done. It's not done. I have so much work to do, but like I, that is really the goal I think is I almost when I think about it, I'm like, Oh, I want people to come and feel like they're in my living room or their living room, wherever they're the most comfortable because we're so uncomfortable most of the time.

We're like walking around and trying to be like, I even have days where I'm uncomfortable in my own skin. That is insane.  But I yeah, we deserve to feel comfortable sometimes and it should be in community. We don't all want to be  isolated. Even if we're not the always the most social people . And I think 

the masking plays a big part of that.

You and I connected on threads. . And I think we see this on threads  of, because it is, and I feel like it was on the other thread, similar platform. When it very first started, like in 2006 when I first got on it, there was this like.

Niceness about it, which definitely went away. But now on threads, we see people  because it is semi anonymous. It can be completely anonymous, but it's still linked to your Instagram, right? How they've done it. It's semi anonymous, but there is this wonderful unmasking because we're communicating through written form, which also means normally it's like four threads instead of just one, because who can be succinct and we're able to share and connect and find like minded and similar lived experience people. 

And for anyone who's on Threads and has fallen into this little pocket hole of like, especially ADHD Threads, neurodivergent Threads, like, it's a beautiful community space that's so supportive and censorship, but in like the most positive way. So someone posts something and then like a little troll comes on and you will see tons of people coming to be like, Get out of here.

We don't accept that here. Go away. Go back to the other platform.  So it's beautiful. And I think you're just taking that kind of idea and honing it and honing it into something that's even more niche and so needed for like,  I am in this category, like late diagnosed neurodivergent woman.

So I'm so excited to see what everything comes out with. What are the next steps? I know you said you don't have a date, which you may come out with, but what's the timeline and the steps that you're thinking of?  

We're actually really close to getting live and I have already about 60 members who have committed and I will maybe ask you to join this cohort, but to join the very first kind of iteration and Provide feedback.

So it's going to be a lower fidelity, like lower  quality version of the whole thing we're building, but just trying to understand how people are using the space, what they need, and then what we need to fix or build. Like a 

beta.  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. 

And also just, it's hard to go into a community, especially an online community that's like in a platform and then. 

Not have a lot going on. And so I think our earliest people are  like, they've either self selected or I've badgered them into like helping me see the kind of that engagement. So when people come, it feels like they're entering. Like a fun cocktail party, and there's no pressure. Like you can go where you want to go and you can go talk to who you want to talk to, but it's not just like an empty, awkward room.

So that's really my goal at the beginning is just to try it out and see how people interact and what they need and then figure out, okay, what do we need to build next? And then we'll still be working on all the content so that we can get that out as well. And over time,  I'm just going to entrust the community to tell me what needs to happen.

I started this with a store like, Oh, let's help people find sensory friendly products. And everybody said, this is awesome, but I need more education and community. And so  I can't even claim the idea, like the customers. Of my very early, like MVP told me what they wanted. And so that's what we're doing. So you 

can claim putting everything to action, like don't sell your show short because all of us sit around going like, Oh my God, I wish this thing.

But you're like actually building it and you're making the thing that we all sit around and talk about. So give yourself some credit. I know it's hard, but you're putting in the work and you're also, monetarily you're invested.  

Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.  Yeah. Yeah. And I have some really great people helping me.

We'll get it done. And I will say like, it will be ready by January 1st. That's the date. I, yeah, I'll say it. You're the first to hear this podcast is the first place I'm saving a date. We will probably have a version of it. For that small cohort earlier, but I think it will be like live January 1st.

Oh, that's 

exciting. 

Now you're my accountability partners. Yes, I'm going to be like,  

I will say you're definitely doing like The right thing there. I think anyways, especially for our brains, because if we go in as much as like, I'm incredibly introverted, but in an online space, I want to go and I want to see all the stuff and, a little bit of,  is this a term digital voyeurism?

Yeah.  Where maybe I'm not fully engaging in those comments and the things in the community board, but I still want to read them and see them. I want to gain that information and knowledge. So by you having that aspect up and rolling when new people come in is, I think, going to make it so successful.

Yeah, thank you. I hope so. It'll be an experiment, I think, but we'll go along with the ride. Yeah, as long as it feels safe. I think that's it, like safe, if it starts to get, Like a Facebook forum or Facebook group that I'm going to have to do something else, but I really believe there's a way to have community groups and keep them safe and keep them moderated. I'm thinking of it is our moderators are mental health professionals, not just  like social media managers and nothing against social media managers.

They're amazing. And I have one and she's incredible, but she's not a mental health professional. And sometimes In a space, especially with a lot of neurodivergent people talking about mental health topics and lifestyle, like we just need a more clinical support. And  hoping our moderators are able to go in and say, Hey, this is not the best way to talk about this. 

Let's go here or book some time with me and let's work it out. And maybe we can also educate the entire space on how to  play nice. So  

it's not like flagging misinformation, like, oh, hey, that is actually something that's commonly circulating on.  But actually, that's not real or that's not true or there's not very much evidence to support that because  I think about supplements, right?

Like, we don't actually have very many studies or evidence to support certain supplements or any supplements, mostly, but there are some that everyone's like, This helps my ADHD so much. And even if it's just a moderator coming in and saying, like, we have anecdotal data about this, but there's not actually any firm studies or evidence to show that.

X helps X.  

That's such a good point. Yeah. I think there has to be a super clear distinction between this is my personal experience and this is what the science says. And yeah, science has a long way to go. It's not always correct, but it's the best we have right now. 

And we 

can learn from people's personal experiences, but they need to be labeled as that.

So that we're not getting confused on, Like, a supplement might work for somebody, but they don't know what medications you're on. They don't know what your biochemistry looks like. Like, your doctor barely even knows what to do with supplements. Maybe And supplements are 

so unregulated.

Yeah. Supplements are scary. They're really bad in the U S I have a friend whose husband had a seizure from  basically knock off supplements that he bought on Amazon and they had some other ingredient in it and he had a seizure and it's not uncommon to get off brand or knockoff supplements online.

And even the ones that are named brand, like you said, are not always accurate. I don't know off the top of my head, but I have a couple of websites where you can look at third party reviews of supplements and those are very helpful. I'll give you the links to those for your show notes. 

Yeah. Cool. Please.

Cause  I often hear when people talk about supplements, they're like, Oh, you know, just whatever you get on Amazon. And I'm, and like, this is not bashing Amazon, but it's, that is so dangerous because there are some supplement companies who, like you said, you can check a bit more. There's some that they pride themselves on.

doing third party testing themselves and they'll label that and they'll put that and that does unfortunately mean they're probably going to be a bit more expensive, but it's like, you have to pick what you're, voting with your money. Like, do you want to vote for a company that is going to do that?

And you are a bit more assured about the quality of the product or do you just want to go and get like, whatever. And in some cases, okay, cool. But in other cases,  probably not.  

Yeah. And the supplements are meant to supplement  that we should be getting from food and from exercise and things. And like, it's a whole other conversation to talk about why it's very hard to do that in today's world.

But a lot of people, and it's not even their fault. It's just the way supplements are marketed.  feel like they're replacements. And that also is problematic. And so whenever they're recommended, they need to be recommended in context. And I rarely see that. So that's back to the vetting, like, okay, if we were to recommend a supplement, we would actually have it tested.

We would get a third party tested. We would have medical reviewers look at it and we would provide the context of it. And when you. Could use it or like what is it actually supposed to do versus the claims that are on the bottle that are just made up. And I used to work in the food space and I can tell you like, don't believe any labels on anything that's like food or like skincare or yeah, skincare is pretty bad. Or like skincare is like a makeup. 

It's a whole little Pandora's box. 

Yeah, there's legal labels that have certifications and then there's a lot of marketing terms that look like labels that don't mean anything.

And I only know that because I was on marketing teams and I learned how companies get those labels. And it's not what you would think. So I really don't trust them. 

I feel like that could be like a whole separate.  Going  into all of that I am, I do want to be respectful of your time. So you've said by January, we will have Divergently out in the world.

People can sign up now at joindivergently. com. I'll, of course, include that in the show notes. You're on all the social medias. So I'll pop those down. Do you prefer, I know you have your own and you have Divergently, obviously we want everyone to follow Divergently, but you, yours as well, like you put out great information  

thank you. I am not on Instagram that much on my personal feed, but it's Kendra Koch. If you wanted to follow me there I probably write on LinkedIn more. It's also it's Kendra Koch. And then Maybe eventually I'll get more comfortable with video and do more Instagram videos, but yeah, at joined divergently is where we are for the platform and where all the resources for that will go and can always email me too.

I'm Kendra at joined divergently. com. And I do read all the emails that I get and Do my best to reply to them. I might be slow, but I will eventually reply.  

Thank you again. I appreciate you. 

You too.