Meagan: 0:33

Hello and welcome back to her time to Talk. This episode today is extra special because I'm here with Sydney, our incredible social media manager, podcast producer, and our intern clinician in training. Today I am diving in to a really special topic with Sydney. and it's one that's very deeply personal to her. we're talking about Neurodivergence. A DHD especially, and we're gonna talk about how this shaped her journey as a woman, as a professional, and now as a therapist and a group leader. Sydney, for those who don't already know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and why this topic is so close to your heart?

Sydney: 1:10

Hi everyone. I'm Sydney. you may have heard a little bit about me on previous podcast episodes in how I feel very strongly about helping women who are coming out of narcissistic abusive relationships. part of that is from my experience with narcissistic abuse, which is for a very similar reason that I feel very passionate about helping women who are neurodivergent because I myself am a neurodivergent woman. I was diagnosed with. A DHD later in life, actually in college, but I didn't really lean into it until my adult years. part of the reason I'm passionate about helping support other women having this late in life diagnostic experience is that. It's not talked about enough. when we look at A DHD, we really think about this, hyperactive, bad little boy syndrome, and we kind of imagine this 12-year-old boy who can't sit still and is fidgeting in the classroom and is disruptive, which. Many of us women can't see in ourselves. A DHD presents very differently in women. And that's not something that I realized until I learned more as an adult. when I was first diagnosed in college, I didn't really take it super seriously. I felt like everybody in college was taking a DHD medication for one reason or another, whether or not they were prescribed it, which was part of the reason I was hesitant to take medication in general. I'm also somebody that experiences anxiety, so the idea of taking a stimulant was really uncomfortable for me, and at first it was not something that. I enjoyed it all and the, the negative side effects did not really add up to the benefits I was looking for. So it was something I kind of just threw to the wayside. like many other people who go to a psychiatrist for an assessment, I was told, yep, you check a bunch of these. Boxes. Here's a packet of information and a prescription for a stimulant. that just didn't feel empowering or affirming, and it left a lot of questions and not a lot of support. I come from New York City, the metropolitan area essentially, and both of my parents were executives in their fields. So I never really saw another path to my career development other than becoming an executive and whatever it was I did, I Was very passionate about photography. I really wanted to work in production. I ended up working in advertising like my dad. And ironically, project management essentially is what I was doing, which was really hard for me. at the time I had not started medication treatment, so I felt like I was. Just constantly running on empty. Every additional task was more emotional effort and anxiety. I got laid off several times. In my career. I would take those really personally, even though they technically were not personal, and it was hard for me to not see them as failings of my own that I held a lot of shame for. I kept comparing myself to other people in the field and being like, well, somehow they're able to make it happen, why can't I? So as I've gotten older and I've been in this. Journey to becoming a counselor myself, and I started learning more about myself. I started reading a lot more books and talking to more, women and other adults who have been diagnosed late in life with A DHD. I've begun to see aspects of it that fit so many pieces of my story that. Didn't make any sense to me at the time, I have felt empowered by being able to understand myself better and by looking at some components that are untalked about, like the emotional side and rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which is something that has really altered my experience and relationship. Romantic partners as well as friendships. Work life balance is just not something that we were taught to value. I know that I need more time to process. I know that I need a really high level of self-care in order to have a greater window of tolerance for things like rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, or just emotional regulation in general. So learning these things and being able to identify them has been really helpful in being able to recognize, what I need and who I am. I've always been the type of person to identify greatly with my career. So being able to look at that value and say, okay, this is important to me, means I need to pick a career that is in alignment with my identity. embracing Neurodivergence as part of my identity has been a way that I've really been able to find a career that matches what I need and what I value. Realizing that this wasn't the world for me. I am setting myself up for failure by trying to fit myself into this square hole as a round peg, making the transition to what I'm doing now and to being in a helping position, where I also have a lot of autonomy in creating my schedule and, dictating how this work is gonna look and having a direct outcome for myself has made such a difference. In my mental health, in my ability to relate to people in the world and the way that I have self-compassion I want other women to see that we don't have to force ourselves into a place that's not going to be conducive to our wellbeing. how can we make adaptations to a world where our brain isn't necessarily the norm or made to have a place here? I wanna help women find that answer because it really has made a world of a difference to me. So empowering other women with that information as well as helping them find the practical skills and tools to help executive dysfunction and, have more self-compassion in general, which is a big piece of being able to understand. This component of who you are and knowing that you have a different neuro type, you experience the world in a different way.

Meagan: 7:45

Yeah. that's so powerful, and what I really hear you saying here is you're helping women realize how to bring more peace into their life. Yes. And that is definitely worth the investment. Thanks so much for that. Sydney, you touch on so many important topics there that I wanna dive deeper into, I'm hoping we can back up and start at the beginning to hear a little bit more about your diagnostic journey and what was it for you that. Motivated you to go and seek a higher level care and to get this diagnosis and to even try this medication in the first place when, we're coming from a time where the only presentation of A DHD that we know of is, a little boy like squirming in his seat in the classroom and unable to sit still. So what made you as a, 18 to 20 something year old woman think maybe I have that same thing that the little boy in the movies have, bridge that gap for me.

Sydney: 8:35

I started to notice in school when I got to college, most of high school, I was able to get by. All of the adaptations I had made to work with my system. And that's a major thing that as women do, is we mask and we adapt and we find ways to make the system work for us. I was the high schooler who would be up till four in the morning writing papers or waking up at four in the morning to write papers the day before they were due. Procrastination and time blindness were a major part of my story I kind of assumed that these were just quirks about myself that made life difficult and I didn't necessarily put together that they could be a part of something that. Was a full diagnostic concept that would give me a lot of information. in college I wasn't able to get by not studying and writing papers at the last minute in the way that I was able to in high school. I had a lot of anxiety around that. I would be having panic attacks in the library, trying to write research papers, all at the last minute I would write so many note cards because I just couldn't decide what was important. I was just flooding myself with information, which is the absolute worst chaos you can experience is somebody with a DHD. And so finally I talked to my mom, and my mom brought me to see a psychiatrist, that psychiatrist gave me an assessment He asked me a bunch of questions. I checked a bunch of boxes. He gave me the diagnosis. wrote me a prescription that day and handed me a very antiquated packet of information. I think I still have it somewhere. It looks like it was copied in the 1990s. And it was a DD at the time, it was before they switched everything under the A DHD umbrella. And a DD made more sense to me. The attention deficit concept, the hyperactivity part was really what? Kept me from leaning into the diagnosis at first because I really didn't resonate as hyperactive and I didn't realize that's because in women we're not necessarily always visually hyperactive. A lot of it is more internal. So I am having All of these internal processes that are super hyperactive and we're pulling in sensory input constantly and trying to make sense of it and having challenges, deciding what's important and where to put our focus. So once I was able to get. Past the adhd, A DD thing is when I really started to have some light bulbs come on. that honestly came up during my counseling practice in the beginning, when I first started grad school and I started talking to more people, and noticing this rejection Sensitivity dysphoria. that was really big for me. It's very common in people with a DHD where we feel the pain of rejection so much more deeply than the average neurotypical person. it's akin to physical pain. they've even looked at brain scans to see where that pain is felt. And it is in the same place as neurotypical. People feel. Physical pain. that was a big part of my experience growing up. Just feeling like I didn't fit in or taking things really personally or people pleasing because I was, taking things really personally. And all of these little habits that I had picked up and come to learn about myself, it all started to make. Sets. And that's when I just started doing a deep dive on like, okay, well how is this different for me and, and what stories do I resonate with and what parts of this do I resonate with so I can really understand more? the more I leaned in, the more I realized that this is part of who I am and it's something I wanna understand how to adapt.

Meagan: 12:18

Thanks for sharing all of that. I think your story really highlights an important thing that women who maybe are neurodivergent or suspecting they are really need to notice and think about, which is just the amount of hurdles it takes to actually. Start thinking maybe this is something I have or maybe this is something that I should seek further support with. Because when you don't, match this whole little boy squirming in the seat, in the classroom image, it takes a lot to get from. That's the concept of A DHD that I have in my head to how does this apply to me? There's a lot of internal psychological hoops and societal hoops we have to navigate through to even have the space to say, well, is this something that I identify with? And I really wanna emphasize here the importance of looking at this situation through a gender lens. Because, the reason why women often are diagnosed so much later in life is because of this gap, right? Little girls in the classroom are not allowed to get up and run around the classroom the way boys are, in a patriarchal society that we, live in, Little girls are expected to behave at a higher level. We hear it all the time like, oh, girls mature faster, no, they don't mature faster. They are behaviorally conditioned to be more mature at a younger age and that kind of expectation, even, within the classroom, the little girl is sitting there feeling just as squirmy, but she's forcing herself to sit in that seat, whereas little boy has not been conditionally. Forced to learn how to sit in the seat regardless of how he feels. So from this very young age, this gender perspective of our society and the way that we treat little boys versus little girls, it does contribute to these very big adult problems. Like, I'm going off to college and now I can't function.

Sydney: 14:06

Absolutely. the term masking is, something that we talk about in the neurodivergent community, both for autism spectrum disorder and A DHD. When we talk about masking, we're referring to the conscious or unconscious effort to hide neurodivergent traits and appear neurotypical. It's a form of social self-protection that helps individuals avoid rejection, judgment, or misunderstanding. For women in particular, masking can be deeply ingrained because of social conditioning that emphasizes being agreeable, capable, and emotionally attuned to others. therefore, we have to keep it all together and put on this face of our external presentation, even when our internal presentation isn't that. that can come out in different ways for women, like oftentimes we're more chatty. That's something that. Unfortunately can be shamed upon we can be told we're too much. We're talking too much. We interrupt. That is something that, as a neurodiverse person, I've had to become very aware of. interrupting is socially embarrassing. You obviously, don't wanna come across as someone who's constantly cutting others off, mid thought. But the flip side of that is the internal experiencing of I am afraid that I'm gonna forget what I have to say if I don't get it out right this second. And unfortunately, when you don't understand that, that's what's going on there's this element of shame.

Meagan: 15:39

Yeah, and that's a great really specific example too of, if you don't do the internal work to notice that and to hold onto that thought so you don't forget it You interrupt that person, you're seen as rude. You're seen as not someone that can have, good social relationships, or maybe you miss out on a promotion at work because you can't come across in the right way in meetings. this has really big significant consequences and it's important to notice, what is the demand that's placed on women in these spaces and the difference in mental and emotional labor that happens here.

Sydney: 16:16

Absolutely. And when we talk about masking, my own personal view is masking is. What you decide to make of it. Because to an extent in the corporate world, there is an element of masking needed to, get that promotion, get where you wanna be. I view that as an adaptation, but I also wanna promote unmasking as well of asking for what we need, because we know this about ourselves and saying, you know what? I own that I did interrupt you. I'm sorry. let's take a step back and hear what you had to say. And just being able to own that as part of who you are and have compassion for those behaviors is a way to unmask and also adapt at the same time.

Meagan: 17:01

Yeah, absolutely. And that's so important, especially with those closest to us in our life too. this part of our conversation is really making me think about another podcast episode I listened to from the podcast called Women at Work. they have a great episode on A DHD in particular. In that particular episode, they said, it's really important to realize that women with A DHD are not. The ones that are not successful, they're not just the ones that don't do well in school or can't hold down a job, oftentimes they are very high functioning and quote unquote successful in what we would, typically label successful. But it's not, whether or not they can do it and whether or not they can mask well enough to do it, it's at what cost. So at what cost does this bring up for the woman? And we have to think about the other comorbid, diagnoses that often accompany, neurodivergence. things like higher levels of anxiety and depression. These make sense when you look at it this way, the cost of masking to such a high successful level, this adaptation is actually a lot of other mental health. Issues. That we suffer from.

Sydney: 18:07

Absolutely. a lot of that comes with the shame aspect of the executive dysfunction just sheer exhaustion from masking so hard and holding so much shame from that masking of, thinking this is not the way I should be. Clearly this isn't working. What do I have to do to make it work? the mental gymnastics of that, like, here are my 20 systems that I need to have of color coded project management tools in order to do A third of the work that somebody else is able to do in a maybe quicker period of time. when you don't understand these things about yourself, it's easy to caught up in that shame spiral, which leads to anxiety, depression, and often. Burnout. We see a lot of women who either were late diagnosed or not diagnosed, who are coming in with burnout, in midlife because they've been working so much harder, than their peers to, put out equal or possibly even better quality work.

Meagan: 19:13

So I wonder in your, perspective of doing the work to allow yourself to be vulnerable and unmask, How do you think that is actually a form of resistance The sense of either pursuing a diagnosis in the first place, taking the steps to learn more about yourself, or actually practicing unmasking if you already have that diagnosis?

Sydney: 19:34

The first part is empowerment by knowledge. Having more self-awareness is the first step into being more self-empowered, when you can see the ways in which you show up in the world and the discrepancies in the ways you'd like to show up but also hold an acceptance. For both things. that's where you can find a lot of empowerment it's like, okay, I see this part of myself or this part of my neuro type that isn't even my fault. It's just who I am. Maybe it's who I've been socialized to be. I can give compassion to that. I can take the shame away. Brene Brown talks about the antithesis of shame by, shedding light on something shame thrives in darkness. So if we can name this thing that we're typically ashamed of this struggle or this part of who we are and say, here it is, but I love you anyway. And here's what I'm gonna do to use it to my advantage. So it's kind of like this trickle down of starting with understanding and then turning it into compassion and then turning it into action.

Meagan: 20:49

Yeah, absolutely. It seems very isolating because there's so much empowerment that comes from, self-education and awareness of, why I'm burned out. why I'm so anxious. why everything feels so hard. And then to go through those layers of, now that I understand this about myself I accept this and I can figure out, when it's worth the effort to. Lean into masking and doing all of these things with all these systems versus when I can back off and let my authentic self be. All of that is personally very empowering. But I imagine allowing other people to come in and learn this, about you, like sharing this with others can add a layer to that. Absolutely.

Sydney: 21:31

And I think part of the reason that I was able to connect to this so much is by reading about others people's perspectives. a lot of the bibliotherapy I did was written by either psychologists or A DHD experts and coaches who themselves are, neurodiverse and therefore. Have a really nuanced understanding of these little parts of our stories that, make a lot of sense when you put'em all together. just talking to other people also made such a huge difference because if we just look at a list of descriptors of behaviors or, issues or symptoms, It's actually quite easy to either self diagnose or not, which is quite problematic. I think the information that's out there is very unilateral. If you go to a psychiatrist or take assessments, a lot of the assessments need updating and don't account for the female presentation. So really talking to more women. Who are experiencing this and realizing you're not alone and this is not something you have to be ashamed of because actually there's a whole community of people going through the exact same thing is so powerful and has been so helpful to me. Even social media, which we've talked about can be. Both really great and also terrible. there are a lot of people out there putting out content of like, this is my authentic self unmasked. This is me crying because I'm overstimulated. Just really authentic content like that is, very. Connectable and anything to make you feel understood and seen in a world that often doesn't see us, can be so powerful.

Meagan: 23:20

Yeah, absolutely. And I think social media is an easy place for people who are newly diagnosed or are suspecting they may, warrant a diagnosis because they resonate with a lot of this. Social media is a place to go to really easily to try to find community and connection. And you're right, a lot of this content can be very validating and affirming and supportive. And unfortunately, there's also a lot of content creators out there that are putting out a lot of. Information that is not grounded in the science or in the diagnostic criteria. And I'm wondering if you have any tips for people on how to, stay away from, content creators that have self-diagnosed and are putting out. random criteria that they're latching on with the term, neuros spicy or neurodivergent versus these are the quality content creators that really do personally have the experience or the expertise and knowledge to say, this is actually grounded in the science and this is not.

Sydney: 24:17

Totally. And I think that's a problem with so many buzzword terms today. you look at something like narcissism, where there is an over-diagnosis and that is very problematic. you have to pay attention to where this content is coming from. Is this a licensed counselor? Is this somebody who has credibility as an A DHD coach who is. Putting out this content, sometimes it is just your average person who's like, this is my experience. in that sense, you either connect with it or you don't, but you take that as information and not a reason to self-diagnose. there's so much information at our fingertips being shoved down our throat so quickly. many people will show signs and symptoms of a DH adhd, like our attention spans neurotypical people included are diminishing. By the second. So I think in that space you are gonna find a lot of overlap with neurotypical people who are seeing, similar symptoms. Keeping in mind that it's a spectrum, just like any other, a SD is a spectrum. A DHD is a spectrum. Whether or not you warrant a clinical diagnosis at the end of the day, that can be really affirming and helpful, What's important is how you connect to it. if you see something and you're like, I connect to this experience, then you've learned something about yourself.

Meagan: 25:37

Absolutely. I think that's a really good point that if they are seeing content put out by someone who went through the proper channels to get a diagnosis and are putting out helpful content to help others and that they're resonating with that, or maybe you're following a licensed counselor on Instagram and you're thinking, oh man, they're talking a lot about Neurodivergence and this checks all the boxes for me, that is a really good starting place to be like, oh, maybe I should actually. Get off of social media, book an appointment and get an assessment done. It's a starting place. a supportive place. a place to find community, but it's not a place that can give you a diagnosis either. that's important to remember. I'm wondering if you can give some advice to those that are maybe hearing this podcast and saying, oh, wow, I'm totally identifying with Sydney's experience here. This seems very similar to mine. How do women go about getting the right level of care, the right type of assessments to figure out what is really happening for them?

Sydney: 26:36

There's a bunch of avenues to get assessments done for. A variety of different, NeuroD diversities, and I think going with a specialist for your assessment piece is important because, us as counselors, technically as we can diagnose A DHD, but the assessment tools that we have available to us are limited compared to someone like a psychiatrist who might specialize in one diagnosis or another. So for that initial diagnosis, if that's really what you're looking for, finding somebody who is a specialist in that area and who also is very affirming. I didn't have the greatest experience to be perfectly honest with my first, diagnoses because. I went to a man who was a psychiatrist who didn't insist on seeing me, who was ready to prescribe me medications right away. I think you wanna find someone that is gonna have a conversation with you about treatment, and definitely that's going to include therapy as part of that treatment. There's a lot of ways to treat A DHD Stim. Stimulants are like the number one thing, but there's so many. Other aspects stimulants aren't gonna be the only thing that you need to. Better yourself, and to be able to adapt having a care team that can work together with you on the emotional component, the adaptational component, which might look like having a coach. Some people really like working with A DHD coaches. I think that a really good therapist who is also passionate about the coaching aspect. of adapting, which is somebody like myself or a group, like the group that I'm about to be leading. That's very much like, okay, here's the diagnosis. Now what do I do and how do I apply this? somebody that has experience and knowledge that's specialized because there's so much variety within this spectrum of diagnosis. it's important to have somebody with experience in that.

Meagan: 28:42

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. going and scheduling a consultation and doing an intake assessment with a licensed professional counselor, is a good place to start. And of course I'm a little biased, but I think it's logical too, because we. Can sit down for a full hour and have that conversation with the client around, here's what I'm identifying with and here's the questions I have. And we are qualified to, give the A DHD assessment screener, but we can also give screeners on trauma depression and generalized anxiety, and we can have those more, unpacked conversations around, these symptoms are more attached to this versus these symptoms are more attached to that. And we can help determine, these experiences really are connected to neurodivergence versus maybe we also have anxiety or some trauma that's impacting this and we can give some recommendations based on a more comprehensive assessment on, okay, you really do need to go. see a higher level, provider, like a psychiatrist to seek medication and deeper assessment on these things. It's a good starting point to also get referrals for the other members of that integrative care team. The best form of treatment is to have those multiple support systems, working together in support of.

Sydney: 29:57

And that's a really good point I didn't even think about as a first step, that I wish actually I had the option of, because there are a lot of, comorbidities with symptoms of anxiety and depression that do come along with, symptoms of A DHD. That's hard for somebody Whose job is to follow this medical model with very little nuance, to give this assessment and check off a bunch of boxes. But when you have a counselor who can look at it from, a more zoomed out lens, who can see where different pieces of the puzzle are coming together. We're all complex people and we all have different upbringings traumas and things that affect these presentations. being able to have that holistic lens can be very empowering and affirming. A big thing that I've noticed a lot of people who are especially self-diagnosed tend to do is to say, okay, well I have a DHD, so you know, that's its fault. This isn't part of me. this is an excuse for bad behavior. That's a really important piece of the puzzle being able to work with a therapist to notice okay, this is part of me. now what do I do with that part of me instead of just like, I need medication for this. It's not my fault. I have no accountability. I cheated on my partner'cause I get bored easily. I've heard that from people before.

Meagan: 31:21

Yeah, it kind of connects to that whole trauma phrase of hurt people hurt people. And therapists are the people that step in and say Yes, you've been hurt. No, that's not okay. Yes, you deserve a lot of treatment and compassion for that, but it is ultimately your responsibility to do the work, to heal so that you don't perpetuate that harm. And, it's a different circumstance, but I think the same. view applies here with Neurodivergence as well it's really important and empowering to understand what's going on in your brain and how it works so that you can work with it and not allow it to harm your relationships or your professional career or, whatever environment that you're in. Absolutely.

Sydney: 32:02

Yeah. another reason for seeing a therapist, first, because of all the content out there. And the height of self-diagnosis. I've noticed a lot of, clients coming in describing their experience using the DSM checklist, and I'm like. Is this your reality or is this what you've read about and turned into words? being able to see where, there might be a lot of truths in that, but there also might be trying to box myself into a category, which is something that I'm personally very against in the world of the medical model. So leaving room for nuance is really important.

Meagan: 32:44

That's such a good point. And here at her time therapy, we lean into practicing feminist therapy, which does not pathologize people for struggling in a world that is in crisis and isn't built for them. So we don't want to encourage people because they check the boxes or they, align with someone on social media. We don't want them to say like, oh, well I'm suffering and I feel like I identify with these things. So that must be it. That must be the name for why, right? When really it's, this world wasn't built for you. We're in a very chaotic, scary political climate. We have a lot of economic worries for women. You may have, vastly uneven mental and emotional loads within the home. There's a lot of systemic factors at play that may be. Drawing your attention to multiple places at once, that doesn't allow you to get enough sleep to focus well during the day. There's a lot of other big picture concepts that a therapist will also take into account rather than just, do you hit the boxes on this rather short list?

Sydney: 33:47

Absolutely. And looking at things like where you are in your lifespan, it's important too. We have this. Entire age of being a woman, perimenopause and menopause, where our hormones are fluctuating so much that all of the presentations of these different disorders are magnified and. Not taking that into account is doing such a hindrance to women in general. And that's something that as a counselor that practices from a feminist systemic lens, we have that ability to look at those types of things and see the big picture.

Meagan: 34:28

That's such a great point and I love that we have a group going right now for that, perimenopause group, and I know we'll have more workshops and things going on for that. So if you are a woman in that. 35 to 60 range. definitely check out our website to learn more about that. But before we talk more about the group you are running, I would love to invite you to talk a little bit here about the co-diagnoses of autism and A DHD.'cause we've leaned a lot into A DHD today, but. Some women may find themselves having been diagnosed as autistic in school'cause that is a little bit more common and are now also wondering if they have this additional layer on top of it. There's all kinds of combinations out there and which one gets diagnosed first, but what would you like to share with our audience about that combination of neurodivergence?

Sydney: 35:15

Yeah, so if you look at a Venn diagram of a DHD presentation in women as well as a SD presentation, there's actually a lot of. Crossover. I like to look at it as different process. Same problem. For example, Both A DHD and a SD can involve sensory overwhelm, but they stem from different underlying mechanisms. In A DHD overstimulation often happens because attention and sensory filters don't regulate effectively. The brain struggles to prioritize input, so everything sounds, sites thoughts feels equally important all at once. It's like having 10 browser tabs open and they're all playing videos at full volume. It's cognitive overload that leads to irritability shut down, or impulsivity Autism overstimulation is more related to sensory processing differences rather than attention regulation. The nervous system may perceive certain stimuli like light, sound, texture, or social interaction as physically painful or distressing, even when others don't notice them. It's not about distraction, but sensory sensitivity. It's a sensory overload that can lead to physical distress, meltdowns, or withdrawal. Some people experience both where overstimulation can come from both cognitive and sensory overload. In that case, the person might experience intense fatigue, emotional dysregulation, or shutdown because their brain and senses are both overaged. So it looks the same, but the processes inside are different, The emotional component is another place where there's a lot of crossover with a SD and masking. Masking is on both sides. Because especially as women, we're masking to fit into society, and that's often for the social aspects. especially on the SD side, we don't really have a good understanding of other people's emotional context, so therefore we're going to try to emulate what we think makes the most sense. Whereas on the A DHD side, we're feeling flooded with emotion and we know we can't show that because if we show we're being flooded with emotion as a woman In so many different spaces that's unsafe. we're gonna have the same feelings come up somatically like emotional flooding and that discomfort and the confusion. Just different internal processes. So it's interesting to look at both diagnosis when you are a woman because there's so much overlap, but there's also ways in which they're quite different. And as somebody that has the. Dual diagnosis that could be even more confusing because it's like, where is this coming from and how do I figure out what I need to do to give myself what I need in this moment? You know, that can be harder to know. And that's where it's even more important to have the knowledge of both sides to figure out how to give ourselves what we need. It's different from person to person, but looking at both can be very empowering and validating.

Meagan: 38:31

Yeah, absolutely. And that takes a lot of time and support to really unpack, this kind of goes more with this diagnosis, this one goes with that. And regardless of where you're at on the spectrum, it's a hard thing to navigate by yourself. everyone needs that supportive professional that will take the time to listen. That won't gaslight you, that won't minimize you, and that will help you figure out what's happening and what are the important next steps forward so that you can succeed in all domains of life because this. Of course impacts us personally on an individual mental health level, but it has, as we've talked about, big impacts on relationships and career. And I know something you have planned going on soon is gonna really lean into the career aspect of this. So I wanted to invite you to talk a little bit about your group, which could potentially be a great next step for someone listening to this and feels like they resonate.

Sydney: 39:26

so I really wanted to create a group that was empowering in, both educational as well as, the group therapy process I've coined the term, therapy infused workshop for this because I really wanna spend a good chunk of time. Each week teaching about a different theme as it relates to the specific neurodivergent, components that relates to an aspect of careers and. We might not look at this career aspect every week in a really direct way. We might be looking at how we emotionally regulate or what kind of environment we need to do our best work. all of these different aspects of who we are. Help us to figure out what we need to have a successful career. this is not just for women who are looking for career advice, it is for women who are in career transition. You might be, young and in school and trying to figure out what happens next. You might have experienced burnout in the workplace because you were late diagnosed, or not yet diagnosed, and you don't understand why. this group is supposed to help. Other women look at these different aspects that they might not know about themselves already and figure out, okay, I'm not alone. I'm in community here and how can we support one another to make next steps in our lives? So that could look like practical tools such as, looking at our emotional ladder and where we are and therefore deciding what activity from our to-do list we need to do first and what time of day is best to do that. Or it could be having mock conversations around our diagnosis with potential employers. And just looking at ways we can support ourselves with self-care and advocacy in all different spaces, because whether or not, we're working towards a specific career or we don't really know what kind of career makes the most sense for who we are and how our brains work, it's a place to explore that. And to find community and other women doing the same thing, who can relate with the experience of, my brain's not broken, but what do I do with these differences?

Meagan: 41:53

Yeah, that group is gonna be so empowering and powerful, I am so excited for the women who join you in this group. I believe it's starting on October 16th, is that right? Yes. So we only have a couple days left to sign up for a free consultation for that group and to have a chance to ask questions to learn more about if this group is the right fit, and talk to Sydney about. Your concerns and what questions you have before you join and get the paperwork done. So if this resonates with you, don't hesitate. Sign up, on our contact form so Sydney can contact you and start that process to figure out if this is the best, step forward for you based on where you're at. thank you for creating such a powerful group. Sydney. The validation of being in a circle with other women who are having these questions, having these struggles, and are just being brave enough to say, I'm not gonna continue to people, please. I'm not gonna continue to suffer in silence. I'm going to ask for what I need and maybe rock the boat a little bit for the benefit of myself and all the women around me that are struggling with this. It's a great step personally, as well as from an activism lens.

Sydney: 43:02

Totally.

Meagan: 43:03

Okay, Sydney. if anyone is listening and wants to get in touch with you to learn more about your group or even to work with you individually on these matters, tell them how to get in touch with you.

Sydney: 43:14

Yeah, i'm gonna put the links to our group signup form, as well as our general group information in the show notes which includes a flyer with contact directly to me.

Meagan: 43:24

That's great, and in case you ever wanna learn more about our practice or how to work with Sydney, you can always go to our website, her time therapy.com and click the direct booking link and select Sydney's name.