EP 4 - Comorbidity: At the intersection of ADHD, autism, and bipolar

In this episode we discuss some of the real life happenings related to living more than one neurodivergent condition at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Feature.

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Oh. Nope, good started. We're going.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hello. Welcome. I'm Trina and he's Jason.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Indeed. Hi.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

And this is Life Divergent. In today's episode, we'll be discussing comorbidity at the intersection of neurodivergence types. Um, so Jason.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yes, what's important to note about all of this is we are not medical or mental health professionals. So don't take this as official advice or anything like that. Whatever means we're not being held accountable.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yeah, none of that. Um, we are for entertainment purposes only. Yeah, we're two people who live divergent lives, and we're here to talk about it. So these are our experiences. Okay, did you bring a friend today, Jason?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I did, yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Can you show us your friend?

unknown 0:58

I can.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

It's a little sloth. Oh my gosh, that's adorable. It's a slob. I like that he has little purple fingies or nails or whatever those are. I brought two friends, but they're friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yay!

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Oh got Sonic and Tails.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yeah, Sonic and Tails. Yay!

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Sonic's having a chili dog like he loves.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Yeah, of course. There's a mustard on it. And of course, I brought a neatho because I need my needle so that I can talk. Your cute little sloth is saying hello. Hello, sloth, hello. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Enough of that nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Moving right along. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

All right. So we're talking about comorbidity, which is simply stated when two neurotypes overlap. Happens all the time. Up to what 80% of people have that overlap. So we're gonna go into some of those some of those overlaps. And hey, let's start with ADHD and bipolar and what those have in common. Well segue to you.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

I know for me, one of the biggest things that I struggle with is racing thoughts. Um, and I tend to have my mind just going crazy all the time. Meds help um because I am medicated. However, there are times when I go off my meds, and there are times that I just can't be held back, I guess. Um, so I have these racing thoughts. They just go and go and go and go. And I've found a couple of ways to deal with it so that it's not as bad. But another very unfortunate thing about my racing thoughts is then I just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And it's almost like I'm monologuing rather than having a meaningful conversation with someone, even though I don't mean to do that, I just I can't stop myself.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

And then when you're going and going and going, it's easier for people to tune that out because you don't have the dynamic impact on specific words or parts of the sentence. It's just one constant. It's like you know how you tune out the fan or the computer humming because it's the same thing, you just start start to turn out that rapid speech.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yes, exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

And it that's difficult to overcome, but can be done with practice.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Yes. Um, and it's unfortunate because I feel like okay, I probably feel this way because I'm the one doing it, but I feel like you know, some of the things I'm talking about are interesting or important or whatever, but my message doesn't make it across for the very reason that you said, because I just talk and don't allow for a conversation to happen. And um, do you seem to have, I mean, you have issues with this as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, especially when I get into something. If I'm speaking generally, you know, the hey, how's it going? The weather, the whatever, that's normal, but when I'm talking about something I'm researching or something that I'm interested in, it's just I I need you to have as much of that in the shortest period of time as possible. And so you just go off to the races.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

And getting it out of your head. I mean, do you experience the racing thoughts? Is that your mouth keeping up with your head?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, I mean, if the thoughts weren't racing, the speech wouldn't be able to.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Right. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Because you know, you don't just stay on the one topic, it's like here's a variation of that that's important. Let's go down that rabbit hole up. We gotta double back. If we remember what it was that we're meant to double back to.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Don't even get me started on that. How many times have I? I mean, I'm just like, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot what I was talking about, and then I'm just there. Yeah, it's a it's a thing, and then I become agitated because um I can't remember. Um, and then um I feel like my rapid speech and such um can partially stem from restlessness too, um, because or it helps me with my restlessness because the whole time that I'm talking, um, you can't really see it that much. I'm doing it now, I'm showing it more now. Just to let you know that I use my hands a lot, I'm restless a lot, I went, I'm pacing, I'm moving around while I'm talking. Um it's another thing that the two of those have in common, too, is the restlessness.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, I'm over here, my arms are crossed, my left middle fingers tapping against my ribs, my right legs just kind of bouncing, just nonstop. Gotta be moving, gotta go fast.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Um talking, like when I'm on the phone, I have to be mobile, you know, pacing. I it and it's I don't know why it works this way, but if I am pacing when I'm talking, I'm able to think um more clearly and more quickly than if I were to be seated. I don't know why that is just a thing that happens, but I'm sure it has to do with the things we're discussing. It's all it's all it all comes together.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Yeah. I know um when I took a public speaking course in college, um, one of the things that we learned was that by making yourself mobile while you're talking, it helps to burn energy. And so when you're in that state where your mind is racing and your mouth is racing, there's like so much energy. And I feel like the pacing, the restlessness is another way of trying to stabilize yourself to get that energy in check. I mean, I don't know for sure. I'm just kind of guessing based on what I know about um public speaking, but it seems to make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah, so that those are things you see in bipolar disorder, those are things you see in ADHD, but let's throw ASD or autism in the mix. Like, what does that have to do with ADHD? How do they tie together? What do you think?

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Well, um, there are hyper focus and intense interests are two things that um are things that overlap in these two things, and I think that those are I just lost my train of thought. Go figure. Um, but hyperfocus is something that both of those have. And in um autism, oftentimes it's called a specialized or specialized or an intense interest. And um with ADHD, one of the great things, even though hyperactive and attention deficit are in the title, a lot of people assume that that means that you can't focus. But one of the problems with ADHD for people is that they hyperfocus, they get stuck on one thing and focus too much. So these are things that overlap, and this is the thing that overlaps in ADHD and autism, is that hyperfocus and or the ability or the disability to focus on one thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

So, yeah, you take the ADHD hyperfocus on specific interests, take the AASD focus on, you know, you'll see people sometimes that have to have things up in a certain line or a certain order, and then organizing things becomes an extreme fixation because you have all that part of you looking at this one thing, making sure maybe everything's at a right angle, or like here's a for instance. I will sometimes doodle shapes while I'm listening to people. Like some people might draw little pictures, I just have shapes. You'll see I have notebooks full of triangles and within triangles within triangles, or squares coming off of triangles, normally polygons of some kind, nothing rounded or arc-like. And that just becomes the most intense focus, and it's nothing really of meaning or value other than drawing things that align in a certain way that I like.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

That's intense. I didn't really realize that you uh did that. I mean, I doodle a lot, and it doesn't have to be the same thing. A lot of times it's just me doodling, writing words that I hear, but I'll get like so caught up on that that um all I'm hearing is I'm singling out words, so I'll lose the rest of what I'm supposed to be listening to because of that.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Um I'm trying to find an example while you're explaining this to the audience. Oh, here's here's a good one. Uh so I have a notebook that I just use for puzzle games if I'm keeping track of notes that I need a book for them. Yeah. But here's just like look at this side right here. Oh, yeah. See all those shapes and things? That's just what I was doing. Yeah. I have so many of them on various pages, but and then I just don't want to stop doing that, and it's like I have to break away from that to get back to whatever it was I was doing before I started.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

A place to doodle.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

I remember you used to do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

I still do, but um, just words, and sometimes they're more than just words, sometimes I doodle like shapes and stuff like that, hearts and so on, but again, just words, and I'll find any piece of paper just to write words and words and words.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Um so yeah, and then shifting away from that can be difficult.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yeah, but it's a hyper focus, just doodling. I love to do it, and I will go out of my way to find pieces of paper to doodle on, like you know, mail when it comes. Oh, envelope doodle, envelope doodle, it just mail, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Um it can be difficult to stop doing that. Yes, at least for me, and I know I've mentioned this on two of them, but I got really sucked into watching some of the the the Justice League movies, and of this one particular story arc, which was 15 movies. I had to want like I couldn't stop. It was very difficult to just break away for sleep, for eating, for anything. Like that's that's all there was. You can't transition away from that, you have to just finish doing the thing. There's no put it down and get back to it, even though it'll be this, it's still there tomorrow, it'll still be there tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah. Um, I know um that I don't experience as much difficulty transitioning as some other people, but I will tell you um a story about um my granddaughter, his niece. She um would have difficulty transitioning, even with um thoughts or um in plans. We would um I would say to her, okay, we're going to go by um the bakery, and then we're gonna go to Walmart. And so that's what would be in her head. We're gonna go to the bakery, we're gonna go to Walmart, but then we'd go to the bakery and I'd be like, Oh, I forgot I need to go to the post office. So then I'd throw the post office in, and she could not make that transition in her mind that we're going to do something else, because in her mind the transition was going to be, and it's not necessarily exactly the same, but it brings us to another point where symptoms overlap in ADHD and autism, is that um she would experience emotional overwhelm um when trying to transition in doing something different than what she thought we were going to be doing. Um, and I know that a lot of people in any sort of transition that they're experiencing, it can cause them um uh incredible um stress, and they have great difficulty with um overwhelm of emotions, and she would break down and melt down in a bad, bad way.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, I see that mostly with autism, but it does come up in ADHD, and simply in my experiences, not to that extreme degree, but to a degree for different reasons.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

So, and it's not just transitions that can cause people that kind of stress, it can really just be different different changes in sensation or the tastes of things, which is anything unexpected or outside of the pre-made plan, even generally speaking.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Yes, and then um another thing that she experienced where she would um have extreme emotions was um sensory input. Like if she had to use a public restroom and it had the really um the automatic toilets that flushed very loudly, she couldn't get off the toilet unless someone was in there with her holding their hands over her ears so she could get up um and you know collect herself. And then if they didn't have paper towel in the bathrooms, um the hand dryers, she could not ever dry her hands. I usually had to let her dry her hands on my jeans or something like that because she couldn't deal with the um noise and she would get emotionally overwhelmed from those noises because of her sensory difficulties as well. And by the way, she has ADHD and autism too. So diagnosed. Um she has been to a therapist who believes that she has autism, but we haven't been to a specific autism center yet to have her diagnosed. Um, but her therapist believes that she has autism, but she doesn't feel like she's the proper person to diagnose her. But ADHD, yes, diagnosed.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Okay. So I noticed that there are some descriptors that we that are apparent or obvious or that we've covered before that we're not going over again, but those ones you'll see in all three, which we're going to touch on in a bit. But for now, let's focus on how autism and bipolar disorder overlap. Now, a big one for me is the, and we just talked about this a little bit with autism, is the routine sensitivity, where you have your plan, your pattern, and things need to go in that order. And it could be an extreme amount of stress if something changes unexpectedly or specific times aren't adhered to, or it can simply be a maybe a disappointment or kind of a depressive episode if you had a plan and that changed and you just weren't prepared for it, and it it could remind you of your best efforts aren't good enough, or just anything like that can put you in that state.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

I feel like um I don't have a lot of that now just because I don't have a lot going on, but um when I worked, um, I was very methodical, very fastidious about what I was doing and how I was doing it. And I used to hate, hate, hate being interrupted, especially I was gonna say, especially if I uh were doing something um mathematical or something like that, but honestly, it was that way if I were doing something that had to do with writing um some of the things that we had to write in our job. Um, but I would get irritable if someone came and interrupted me because hi pickle, pickle, she's gonna smack me right in the face. Um, anyway, um I would get uh irritable by that because it's like, all right, now I'm gonna have to sit there and go back and figure out where I was. You interrupted my train of thought, and I'll probably never get it back, and I won't have that brilliant thought again that I just had.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Impossible.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

So, anyhow.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, you have to do things a specific way at a specific time. You got your train, it's she's licking your hand. That's adorable.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

She is, she's a lovely. Now she's biting me because she wants me to pet her.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Yeah, okay. So, yeah, it can be a little irritating when you just need to do things a certain way. Um, and as you mentioned before, it can be overwhelming to have just unexpected things happen or just any shifts in the plans or events. More so than just overwhelming. And then you and then what do you do? You stress, you you break down, you just can't move or exist beyond that moment because you don't know what you're meant to do or what needs to happen now that everything you thought was going to happen isn't, it's a lot, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Right. And then um for me, sometimes it's like one of the reasons why I loved working from home was um I didn't get interrupted as much, but if I did, um, because you know we had team chats and things like that. If I got interrupted in the middle of what I was doing and someone says, you know, you have to go do this now, um again, it's kind of going back to the um the routine thing, but um sometimes I'd be like, Okay, I need to take five minutes and I'll be back because I would get so irritable and um I wouldn't melt down or anything like that necessarily, but it's like I just I need to withdraw, I need to be away from everyone, everything, so I can collect my thoughts. Um just I just need to step away because I'm so irritable now, I don't know how I'm gonna behave. So I'd have to get away.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, and sometimes you just want to get away because, you know, people.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

People, yeah. Um, and and that is kind of I think representative of a bigger problem with social withdrawal, for example. Um, that after a day or a week of dealing with so much, I'll just say, nonsense or lack of a better way of putting it, um, all I want to do is just be away from people because I've I've had my my limit, my social battery has been drained now, so I just need to withdraw and be by myself and engage in things that I enjoy doing or nothing, just depending on the situation.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yeah, you know, there's the uh if someone asks you what you're doing and you're like, oh nothing, that doesn't mean you're free, it means you I'm doing nothing that is a specific decision I've made.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

They're like, hey, what are you doing? Nothing. Oh, you want to come out with us? Well, I know I just told you I was doing something, which was nothing.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Oh yeah, don't get me started. Jason and I once had this conversation about the concept of nothing that lasted forever and 30 years ago. Yeah, and my boyfriend at the time was just like, What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Oh, yeah, that too.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah, um, yeah, but we weren't idiots. No, not at all. Not at all. Anyway, so there's that. So I think that we pretty much um covered, unless there's anything else that I missed, um, about overlapping symptoms between the um pairs of those three neurodivergences.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Well, about those two specifically we were going over. I mean, I'm sure that there are a lot more. I mean, the world doesn't exist on horse symptoms, right? But there are, you know, there are several that exist across all of them, basically.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

She's still biting you.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

She wants me to pet her, and I think um she's grooming me. You know how cats groom each other by like nibbling on their fur and stuff to clean, so I think she's grooming me. What she keeps doing though is sticking her butt right in my face, which I don't appreciate. Thank you, but no. All right. Sorry. Um so yeah, as you said, there is um overlap between the three. Um, there are symptoms that are shared across all three neurotypes, they're the same behaviors, but they have different causes.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

You can move her.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yes, I know. But I figure you're gonna take us into this next area.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

So I don't even know what you said. I was distracted by the cat.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Um, I said the common ground. Um, we're gonna be talking about the shared symptoms across all three neurotypes that we've talked about, um, autism, ADHD, and bipolar. And by the way, the reason that we've focused on these three is because they're the three that we're familiar with that we struggle with. So we figure we're not authorities, we're not experts or anything like that. But as far as living a divergent life, dealing with these things, we um have some experience. So there we are.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

Yep. Well, as we as we just learned, you know, one of the common things is is difficulty concentrating, just maintaining your attention or focus on a thing. Just the cat had the little wavy tail, and I'm like, oh it's just all of a sudden that became the most important thing in my life, you know. Just between that, just distractions in general, really, not just doesn't have to be movement like the waving of a red cape or anything. But there's so many things that are interesting, you know. There are you want to look at them or explore them, or maybe you just can't stay focused on something because your mind won't let you, even if it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah. Um I I can um be you know knee deep in research on something, and someone again, this is another reason why this bothers me. Someone can come up to me and say something to me that's really interesting. Um, for example, with um planning out this podcast, as I've stated before, I came up with so many ideas for different episodes, and I had asked my daughter, um, yeah, can you help me come up with some ideas? And she did that one day. And then another day, she just randomly, while I was knee deep in researching something, she texted me another idea, and I was like, I haven't gotten that far yet. And she's like, Well, you asked me to tell you, and I'm like, Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I know in text it sounded really bad, but then it's like, oh, okay, and then I ran off and started um researching that one midway through researching this other one because I didn't want to forget, so it's like what I started doing then was just creating the folders for the ideas and then researching because I just they just kept coming, I couldn't anyway. Um, so difficulty concentrating on one thing because there were so many other things that just kept grabbing my attention.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, your response to her via text and then subsequent explanation is something that's not unusual from a broader perspective when you look at all three of these, just difficulties interacting with anyone, like friends, co-workers, random folk that you meet on the road, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

References, dropping folk on the road, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

So it's it has to do with just misreading, misunderstanding the uh the social cues, perhaps recognizing when someone is totally done with the conversation, or when you do recognize it, but it's more important that you finish saying what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah. Um it's it's um it's challenging um to misread cues, and um again, I withdraw a lot, and so I feel like um I misread a lot nowadays, a lot more than I used to, because I'm I've gotten out of like we all talk to each other. Um, Jason's in a different state than we are. We're in Michigan. I don't know if he wants me to say where he is, but he's elsewhere. Um, but so most of our communication is done by text, even with people in the same house. We're all in a group chat and we just text from our own bedrooms or whatever here. And um so it becomes difficult, I think, even more so now for me to pick up on certain nuances in social situations or when somebody's talking to me, or even texting, even now. Um, when somebody's talking to me in person, um, I find that Courtney and I have a lot of misunderstandings now because I'm so out of tune to um having vocal conversations with people. Um so I I think that um that kind of gets me to the point too where um because we're having our misunderstandings, I start to experience a lot of emotional dysregulation because I feel like um I'm not understood. I'll shut down if I feel like she doesn't understand me and I don't know how to get through to her, so I'll just shut down. Um, which is a problem for me because I already have um some issues anyway with the bipolar with my mood swings and that kind of stuff. Um, so it's very easy for me to be offended or to feel offended. Um, and I think it is for her too, in the way that she uh was like, you told me to let you know of things on ideas that come up um when I really didn't mean that. So I didn't mean it in a bad way.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I have a story.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Oh, yay, I like stories.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Yes, so back. I was literally about to say back when I was younger, it's like, well, no shit. Any moment before the current is when I was younger.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

Back in aught six.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

I don't know. All right, so when I was a child in like the six to eight-year-old range, I was in the Boy Scouts and we went camping a lot. One particular camping event, you're roasting some marshmallows by the fire. And the little marshmallow roasting stick I had, I I liked it, and I kind of burned the end of it, and it was nice, smooth, and spear-like, and that was cool. And so I liked it. It was my favorite stick, and I wanted to carry it with me, and so eventually we had to stop and go do some other things. But when I came back to the fire where I'd left it, someone had stepped on it and it broke, and like the top, I don't know, like four inches of it broke off, and I was devastated, and my dad was pissed off me because he's an asshole. But ignoring that, I then kept the that part of the stick like in my backpack for several months after that.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Because we are divorced, by the way. Sorry, go on. I thought that was relevant.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

No, that was the end of the story.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

It's not go on.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

That was the end of the story. Oh you may have missed the end of it, but I ended it.

unknown 30:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

I thought there was more, and you were just being like, see, you interrupted me.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

No, no, that was that was that was it. There's all that's all there is.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Okay. Yeah, we all have feelings about the dad. There's a reason we're divorced, and it was not out of impulsivity, it was a long thing. However, I feel like I've gotten into relationships out of impulsive acts, probably into a relationship with your dad, in addition to that. Um, you know, a night fueled with alcohol and don't dreams. Huh?

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Don't need to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Well, that's how we got together. That's not how you were created.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

You did you okay, fine. This is good. Let me just okay. Impulsivity, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Yeah, that's a thing. Um, acting without thinking, yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. I do that when I'm talking sometimes. I say things that I think that um certain company might not like to hear or know about, like, oh, maybe like what I just did would be an example of that. Didn't even occur to me that uh that might affect you in a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Yeah, I was gonna throw an example about being impulsive in some way, but go ahead. This is the perfect time. I completely have nothing. Drawing a blank.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

You have nothing.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

I don't think I'm that impulsive.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

No, I wouldn't say that you are. I think that in general, you and I are both pretty chill people. Um, but my biggest impulsity impulsity impulsivities come from things like shopping, as I mentioned um in another couple of episodes, I guess. Um, where I just if I see something I want, I would buy it to the point that I wrecked myself, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Um should have checked yourself.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yeah, I should have checked myself. Um so um what I do now is I put stuff in my cart, like on Amazon. I put stuff in my cart, it makes me feel good. Just the searching, the finding, the dreaming. Someday.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

But yeah. Oh you reminded me. I'm sorry to have interrupted with my oh.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

This is how you remind sorry. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Okay. Um I probably am impulsive, but when it concerns buying and things like that, and I think I mentioned this before, I don't have my billing information saved on websites in which I might make purchases, and I keep any of my cards, debit or credit, like on the other side of the apartment. So if I want to buy something, I can't just add to cart and get. I have to go get my card, come back, type, and sometimes I just don't want to do all that, and it's not worth the and I got to a point, I think, where I just don't make the impulsive shopping decisions because I've conditioned myself to not, it's not worth the effort.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

That's good. I think that's a great practical way of dealing with impulsivity. Um my shopping cart is my way now of dealing with it, putting things in. But of course, you know, so many things now have buy now option. But I have to resist that urge and just add it to my cart.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

It's a good thing I stopped playing mobile games because all these little microtransactions, there's this Google one-tap buy thing, like three seconds later you purchase something. So I just I don't deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Oh my god. I I stopped playing all mobile games too. Yeah, um, because it's like, oh, if I just do this, and you know, the thing is, spending the money was like a dopamine thing, like, oh, I'm gonna get stuff, da da da da, and I'd spend like X amount of money anticipating that the rewards from spending that money would be great. And I was almost always disappointed, and then it's like, oh, do I need to spend more money? How much money do I actually need to spend to satisfy my wants and desires here?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Dopamine's a hell of a drug.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah, it's terrible, terrible, terrible. Okay. Um, and um, you know that again, I think that um when when you're doing things like that, especially when it comes to spending, it can really um it could send me into like this spiral of um emotional dysregulation, um, where I'd be like, oh, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so you know, and on top of already having um my conditions, I mean, because it would literally affect me, like I'd be so up and so up about the spending and the potential and the just all of that. And then when it didn't work out the way that I anticipated, I would literally be so down, and sometimes I'd just walk away from the game and just have to go do something else because I just couldn't deal with my sadness, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Um well you you know you could have just uh slept it off, really. Oh, what's that? A natural segue to sleep disturbances.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Hey, I made an actual segue to emotional dysregulation. Come on, give me some credit here.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Credit's all yours.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Sleep disturbances, yeah. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Ah, for real though. I I can't really speak to this. I take melatonin at like if I'm up late at 11:30, 12 o'clock, and then I'm just out until the alarm goes off. No issues.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

I think um uh you said that you think melatonin has changed because many years ago I struggled with sleep and I worked so many hours in a day, and it was like does not behoove me to be tired. And so I tried taking melatonin and um it didn't work for me. And I don't know, excuse me, I have to readjust. Um, I don't know if um they've changed it now or not, but it might be something I want to consider taking again because I've seriously considered talking to my doctor about getting something to help me sleep at night, because um except when I have a crash and I sleep for a day and a half or whatever, um, I struggle with sleep getting four or five hours a night. Or if I do that because I don't have a job, I may sleep at inappropriate times. What uh general society would call inappropriate times, I guess. Um but I've considered talking to my doctor about getting on some medication, but I think that if uh melatonin would work for me, again, not advice. This is what I'm considering based on what's working for my son.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Um talk to your doctor to see if melatonin's right for you.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah. Um, so I'm considering trying melatonin um to see if that helps with my sleep issues. And it's like my sleep is so all over the place. It would be nice if it were consistent, you know, if I it were consistently screwed up, like all right, I'd go to sleep at at 10 and wake up at 2 and then be up for five hours and then sleep for an hour and then be up. If it were like that every night, then it's like okay, I can adjust and I can not lay there tossing and turning and trying to go to sleep, but it's not consistent, so I'm always so hopeful, and I'm laying there and I have something playing in the background that I've heard or seen a bazillion times, so that I don't get interest interested in it, but there's no pattern, it's just all over the place, all over. All right. Um, so I think that we covered the um three where they intersect. Do you think that we've covered them pretty well?

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Uh yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so much to cover. We could tell stories probably forever.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, and we could go on for hours probably, but we don't have that kind of time. So um, but what we do want to do is discuss, you know, why why it's important to know this stuff, why it's important to understand that there is comorbidity or would you call it trimorbidity? I don't know, um, where three things inter intersect. Um, because as Jason said early on, studies do show that up to 80% of people with one neurotype do also meet the criteria for another one. Having more than one is not rare, it's typical. So it's not the exception, it's the rule that most likely if you have one, you're gonna have another. That's important because um when you come when it comes to getting diagnosed, you need to know these things, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:28

And considering that similar symptoms can have the different causes, you know, one condition can mask or be mistaken for the other. So self-missdiagnosis is common, and it's so critical that people do not hear some random Yahoo on the internet talk about something and think they can diagnose themselves. That is not how it works. You have your neurotype has to be fully understood by a mental health professional, and that's the only way you can tell if something in you becomes like really bad or really dark. Why is that happening? Is what what direction is sorry, what is pulling it in that direction, and how is that treated? And how do you even know? We okay, like okay, I just gotta say there are so many people who think that they can read a lot about something and be qualified to diagnose themselves. I don't care if you are the most intelligent person with an iodetic memory and the fastest reading ability in the world, you're not gonna pick up on a few Wikipedia pages what a doctor studies their entire life. I promise you.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

I mean, Jason and I both have degrees in psychology, but we're not sitting here professing to understand or be diagnostician.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Say the word. Diagnostician, and that's not even a real thing. That's what House did on a show.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Diagnostician diagnose people, yeah. That we're not doctors, we don't profess to be. Um what again, what we know is what we live with and what helps us, what we experience. Um, but when it comes to this, it's really important to understand that if you are misdiagnosed, you could be being treated in a way that could be more harmful to you. So it's really important that you not self-medicate, that you not try to treat yourself, that you seek medical help so that you can get the right help that you need. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

And everyone's different. If you go to a doctor and the medicine's prescribed and it doesn't work the way you think it should, or it seems to make things worse, that doesn't mean the doctor's a quack. It means that specific medicine doesn't work with your specific brain. So you try another one. And that's just how medicine works, honestly. Everyone's brain chemistry is a little bit different.

SPEAKER_02 42:59

Well, as they say, if you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met one neurodivergent person.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

That is a fun expression. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Did you just make that up?

SPEAKER_02 43:12

No.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

I've heard before if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. I replaced it with neurodivergent, so no, I haven't. I did not make it out. But I like it.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Okay, well, you can coin that term.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Anyway, moving on.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

I'm sorry I interrupted a thought. Were you done with it?

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

I said so move moving on, and that's where you say the next thing because I don't know what the next thing is.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

The next thing is um goodbye. I mean, our episode that we have coming up, our next episode, which is going to be tips for navigating ADHD. Specifically, okay, I can I just throw something in here real quick. I have lesions, not legions, but lesions on my brain. And so um, because of that, it prevents me sometimes from saying words. It's not that I don't know the words, I do know them and I can say them in my head, but when they try to come out, they don't come out right. Just so that you know, I'm not really a blithering idiot. Just play one on TV.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Um any legions of blithering idiots stolen in her brain.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Anyway, um, so specifically things that have helped us, because again, we're not trying to give advice, we're just trying to give life experience. All right.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Um I'm not qualified to give advice. I don't I can't even run my own life. Why would you listen to me with anything?

SPEAKER_02 44:50

I know I'm not doing it right. I'm trying, I'm trying to do it right, but then what is right? All right.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

What is right? How do you define right?

SPEAKER_02 45:00

All right, I think it's time to say goodnight. It is or goodbye.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

There we go.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Was there anything else we needed to say?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

No, we literally just said bye and then the off button is next.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Okay. Bye!