MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Join Nate on MindForce, a podcast exploring the intersection of love, life, and learning. Through authentic conversations and personal stories, we dive into the complexities of mental fitness, self-care, and personal growth. With a focus on empathy, resilience, and inspiration, MindForce is a safe space for listeners to reflect, learn, and connect with others. Tune in for thought-provoking discussions, heartfelt stories, and practical insights to help you navigate life's challenges and cultivate a stronger, wiser you!
*The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individual(s) involved and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other agency of the United States Government. *
Intro/Outro Music handcrafted by Jason Gilzene / GillyThaGoat: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/gillythagoat/1679853063
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Understanding Neurodiversity: Erik Taylor on ADHD, Autism, and Building Empathy Through Shared Experiences
After years of navigating life undiagnosed with ADHD and autism, Erik Taylor, a seasoned computer technician and administrative professional, finally received the answers he needed. Join us as Eric uncovers the transformative power of understanding one's neurodiversity, not only in his professional endeavors but also in shaping his recent marriage. Inspired by a personal loss, I share my motivation for starting this podcast—a journey to break the stigma surrounding mental health and foster genuine connections through open conversations about mental fitness.
Explore the intricacies of neurodiversity and mental health, as we unravel common misconceptions surrounding autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its evolving classification. We dive into the ways ADHD, depression, and anxiety intersect with ASD, highlighting the amplified challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals. Discover how everyday language can blur the lines between casual descriptors and genuine conditions, and learn why understanding these complexities is crucial for fostering empathy and support.
Discover practical strategies for managing neurodiversity, from tools like Google Calendar and electronic notebooks to the art of balancing hyperfocus in personal relationships. The conversation extends to the impact of teleworking on mental well-being and the significance of mental fitness for overall health. Through the lens of popular games like Pokémon, we also celebrate how shared experiences can build bridges, illustrating the connections between neurodiversity and the diverse world of gaming. Whether through nostalgic reflections or personal growth, this episode charts a path toward understanding and connection.
Hi everyone, I'm Nate Shearer, your host, and welcome to MindForce, the podcast where we dive into love, life and learning, because your mind truly matters. Today we have Eric Taylor and today we'll be talking about neurodiversity, general mental health awareness and probably the most unique topic we've had so far Pokemon, which I'm pretty excited about. I was inbound to my new base out here in the UK in Mildenhall, royal Air Force Base. I saw these really cool articles about this guy. I didn't know anything about him necessarily, but knew that he was doing some really cool things and initiatives and things of taking care of people. And, lo and behold, I go to in process and guess who it is it's Eric Taylor, my security manager. So it was really cool to be able to connect a face with a name. So, eric, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to be here, absolutely. So I want to start with the warm up the who, what, why, who are you? What do you do?
Speaker 2:And why are you here? All right? Well, I'm Eric Taylor. I am a computer technician by trade, but right now I'm working as an administrative role, working on people's annual reports and award packages and such, processing them, making sure they look good. And let's see what I do. Other than that is a lot of extra stuff, it's. It's a really busy life these days, but you know it's someone's got to do it, you know.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And who are you? In a nutshell, you got married.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just got married back in August, so that's been fun. Let's see 34,. Born in Arkansas, I joined the military at 23, a little bit of a late start, but at the time I was kind of desperate. I went through the first adult years not really understanding why certain things were the way they were, and so I butted heads a lot with my bosses and so I walked out of a lot of jobs and kind of burned some bridges in the process. I walked out of a lot of jobs and kind of burned some bridges in the process. So it was a lot of things I had to kind of figure out which I didn't get answers for until much, much later, after I received my diagnosis for ADHD and autism and I started to understand why I was having the issues I was having with certain rules not making sense, certain people being the way they were, the kind of treatment I was receiving, etc.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, it's kind of sad, how often the diagnosis are delayed and you're struggling through those things for so many years and then it compounds on certain things. I'll get into some of those questions, but I want to give you a chance to ask me a question before we start on the interview.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was curious this podcast in general. What was your passion or reasoning for starting it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. I lost my grandma to mental health as a kid and I always wanted to work on something. I had a couple different ideas on things. I wanted to start. I really wanted to write a book that was like something I feel like it's always cool to say here up right with the author.
Speaker 1:But I never got started on the book and I was moving recently to Florida from my last base out in Japan and I was looking through all my report cards at my mom's house, which, you know I've been out of school for like 20 years now, so I don't know why she still has all my report cards.
Speaker 2:But I was looking through them and yeah, she loves it.
Speaker 1:She hoards a little bit. But I found it interesting all these different report cards didn't really seem to matter what teacher it was or what year it was. It would say something along the lines of nate is a joy to have in class, but talks way too much oh man.
Speaker 1:So I was like, huh, if I talk too much, maybe I should put that to good use. And so I was like I'll start a podcast, I think that'd be fun. And I kept delaying it and delaying it and it was kind of funny. A couple years ago, when I did kick this off, I finally won my fantasy football league Nice, and so I was postponing it because of this, that and the other thing. And the last thing I was kind of hung up on was paying for the microphones and getting the initial setup. And so, lo and behold, I do, I win the championship, I get a couple hundred dollars and I'm like at this point I literally have zero excuses. So I used the $300 or whatever it was, got a couple basic microphones, a basic mixer and got it started. And now I think we're about a year, year and a half, into the show. So, yeah, that's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1:I just want to make lives better for people. I focus on mental fitness. Sometimes I think that throws people off. So if anyone is listening and wants to come on the show, don't be scared off. It's literally anything that'll make someone's life better. We will talk about journaling, art, nature, working out, fill in the blank.
Speaker 1:Mental fitness, I think, has a wide range of different things. Really, I should just say successful lives. Maybe I should change the name, but I just want people to live the best lives they have. And my grandma was such a light in the world and so to lose her due to the stigma and not being able to talk about it and just being able to or having to bury it all the kids didn't even know until we were at the funeral already, and you know that's a terrible way to find out and a terrible way to you know, have that disclosed to you. So I just want to make sure we're having conversations.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the answer to mental health and us going through these challenges, but my, the only answer I've come up with so far is having conversations and conversations. We drive connection and I think connection is the only thing that I can think of. It's not going to be a day, it's not going to be a training, it's not going to be a PowerPoint connection, thinking of someone else when you need help. So that's's where I'm at and hopefully you know some story, some guest, something that was said will help somebody I like it.
Speaker 2:It's very much the same reason that I do the uh advocacy work that I do on neurodiversity. Um, I also have my own podcast researching divergence, and a lot of it is driven by the fact that I want to help people who may be in the same position. I was completely ignorant to why we're struggling, suffering through the world as it is not understanding why things are the way they are, not being able to explain the dichotomies, the ironies in the way that our brains work. Like if I had known sooner about these diagnoses, I feel like I would have had a better time adjusting to adulthood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's awesome. You know we're out there trying to make the world a better place. Hopefully something is heard and helps some people. So, starting with that, I think we got to lay the foundation. So someone has heard the term neurodiversity. It's flying around a little more than it has neuro-spicy, as we may. Can you kind of give a rundown? Someone's tuning in right now, not really sure what it is. What's the foundation? What exactly does it mean Of course.
Speaker 2:So neurodiversity is a natural variation in human neurocognitive functions, that is to say, the way that our brain functions is fundamentally different than someone who is not neuro spicy. Neurodiverse pick your flavor, it's the same thing, it's. A neuro spicy is a commonly used, easier word to say within the community for people, so generally that's an accepted kind of moniker. But neurodiversity encompasses those who effectively are not neurotypical. So you have conditions like ADHD, autism, psychosis, etc. Things that impact the actual development of the brain throughout the lifespan. Lifespan.
Speaker 2:Majority of these will be more easily diagnosed or otherwise will have to have symptoms present in childhood and usually there'll be some range of kind of factors that impact either social capabilities, attention deficits, any kind of repetitive patterns, stuff like that, things that are just kind of off a little, you know, and for some, on the more severe side, it's more extract uh, not extravagant, but more of like exacerbated there's the word as opposed to being like someone who, for instance, like me, who's level one, autistic and combined adhd. I my symptoms are largely mitigated by each other, except for in certain instances like people can kind of pick up on things that are odd with me, but not so much as like kind of like glaringly obvious, which is why I was missed for so long for my diagnoses. So yeah, it's long, long, short. It's an umbrella term to encompass those who are not necessarily neurotypical.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious you briefly touched on it, but could you go a little more in depth on the spectrum? I think sometimes people either believe they either have it or don't have it. But you have a range from you know, yeah, a range of different things. Can you kind of walk through how someone could be on one side or the other?
Speaker 2:Sure. So spectrum is kind of a it's the best use word for not having a good word in its place. So when you think of spectrum you think of like a bar or like a wave, radio wave, et cetera. It's more of like a, it's more like a pie that has spokes for different levels of symptoms. For for autism, autism recently was changed some couple years ago now, uh per the dsm5 diagnostic and statistical manual for mental disorders, fifth edition, which is the american more um specific guidebook that's used for mental disorders, um it. It now includes things like asperger's.
Speaker 2:Um, there was another one. It was a pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. That's the term and then autism. They're all now wrapped up together as just autism spectrum disorder, with now varying levels one, two and three of required support.
Speaker 2:Level one is generally going to consist of your people like myself who are able to function, still need, like some varying levels of support, but we can otherwise get through our lives generally without needing a dedicated care support individual.
Speaker 2:A level two is where you'll start seeing more of that need for support, maybe going out to do certain errands or with certain various activities that they're more drastically impacted by, like if certain environmental stimuli are very impactful to that individual, then perhaps a care support worker would be with them in those environments if they had to go there. And then level three generally are the ones who are unable to function without a support worker. They're the kinds of people that you'll see in like mental mental health homes for lack of better word there's like care homes I'm not sure what they're called in the states, but here they have various care homes for people who have collectively similar neurocognitive disabilities and they have support workers who stay with them and they go out and you'll see them out with, like people with down syndrome, with autism, etc. People they think you take out and take care of, still give them a quality of life that they otherwise can't have on their own.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. You'd mentioned canceling out, so generally I mean, I guess it's probably impossible to generalize, but commonly do people have multiple and do they commonly cancel out some of the symptoms and things like that?
Speaker 2:It's very prevalent to have two to three comorbidities, as they're called, when it comes to having a neurodevelopmental disorder. Most typically you'll see ADHD and autism together. Also you'll see depression in there a lot of the times. With them Anxiety is really common as well. So you'll usually see other disorders slumped in the mix, largely by consequence. Sometimes it's just the way the genetics fall, like ADHD and autism for instance. It's just how the genetics fall. But then for me to have comorbid depression as well is a consequence of having unrecognized and untreated ADHD and autism on top of everything else in life being otherwise skewed by that lens. So a lot of times diagnoses are missed because all people see first are the anxiety and the depression, those kinds of surface level I want to say for lack of better terminology here displayable symptoms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. And you said you know like struggling and you know losing jobs and things like that. Things are really going to compound on each other if you're not really understanding what's happening. So the next question I had for you with the neurodiversity, what are ways you really see that every day? So someone that isn't familiar with the term what are some like everyday examples for a few of the categories?
Speaker 2:so a lot of the symptoms that we deal with are just everyday, every people problems. They're just typical problems, but they're dialed to 11. The difference between someone having, you know, a bad short attention uh, short memory span, rather short working memory there it is. Someone who has that kind of intermittently towards someone with adhd like myself, who has it pervasively, means that I'll forget things constantly. I have to have a running checklist of everything. I have to write down everything or else I will forget, as opposed to someone who may like forget something every once in a while. You know it happens to everyone.
Speaker 2:The level of difference is I frequently am at a detriment in my livelihood as a result of how frequently I forget things and how frequently it impacts me, because then it comes as a consequence of I failed this individual, or I failed this task or I forgot this again, and it compounds and compounds, and compounds and it makes it just worse for us to, whereas other people who don't have this problem can forget something like oh, whoops, my bad, I'm sorry, and it's written off as fine, but if you forget something routinely, daily, all the time, regardless of what it is, people start saying like, dude, you always forget or you never remember anything, and it that's the level of difference so is that where it starts to kind of cross over, because I feel like it's kind of almost become like a common term, like ocd and add um.
Speaker 1:It's like if you line up all your clothes in your closet, people like, oh, I'm so ocd or you know, if you forget something, it's like the common term now, almost like add, like where does it? You know, is it just for fun? And it's haha, or like and then when does it cross over to you? You know, you might need to, you know, get evaluated, what when it starts to impact things like that right.
Speaker 2:Also another thing to consider is how long the problem has existed. If you can trace it all the way back childhood, then that would be something that you'd want to consider looking into a diagnosis for seeing someone about. If it's just situationally based and you know you can identify the factors, and then maybe it's not necessarily all the way back to childhood, then it may just be a habit that you've developed as a result of something that happened along the way. It can be difficult to differentiate, but a leading I guess the leading factor is has it been a thing all your life kind of thing? If it's that level and it meets all the different criteria for a diagnosis worth seeing someone about.
Speaker 2:People saying everyone's a little autistic, everyone's a little OCD, it's understandable that that happens because people rely on observational data, what they can see, what they can observe with their five senses to make a discernment or their version of the truth of what they're observing. So just by consequence that happens a lot and some people are upset about it. Some people aren't on the side of. I understand it's just simply ignorance. There's nothing wrong inherently with ignorance. You can fix ignorance by educating people. So the way I see it is sure these conversations happen routinely for me, that I hear these comments all the time.
Speaker 2:I don't blame people for being that way, because I was very much in their shoes when I received my adhd diagnosis. I was confused when doctors said you have adhd. And I said how do I have hyperactive kid syndrome? That's what I do it as like I I never heard it after I left elementary school. I never heard of it again until I was 30, 32, so learning and realizing just how much is not just available readily for us to know about these things. And then you have hollywood portrayal of things like rain man, for instance, kind of skews the perception of what these disabilities look like. There's a lot of factors that play into why people don't understand it. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:I got a funny story, sort of a tangent, but I feel like it connects, so hopefully it does.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because movies you see stuff and I feel like people see it enough or they believe it to be true. And so last week we had a destruction party over at the 48th med group and they were getting rid of some supplies and I feel like in movies I think it's in the Rock, but I don't know the movie with Nicolas Cage where he holds up two auto-injectors and he, like, injects himself. I don't know if that's true, but the moral of this story is the person put their thumb over the needle portion and put a needle through their thumb and it bounced off the bone and bent the needle. But it's funny in the way where I think that it has been seen so many times where you need to put your thumb over it and that it's completely not accurate. It's on the other end of the thing, it's 180 degrees from where it's supposed to be, but it's like it's been seen so many times Like I must put my thumb on it, like no, that's not even how they work.
Speaker 2:They work on pressure on your leg, but anyway, I guess that's sort of related and sort of not right, because you can see that how, like people do that with the thumb over because pins are that way. It's the same shape also applying the pressure. If you can't get it the pressure with just your hand cup holding something, you would use your thumb to push down more, so like there's a lot of layers as to why you would think that would happen in general if you just like kind of think about it. But as a result of that, yeah, you get people stabbing themselves in the thumb oh, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1:It bent the needle.
Speaker 2:I'm like that yeah that's not a good day that's some sturdy funny, because he was like I don't feel anything.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, because you just got a narcotic, you feel fine?
Speaker 2:he'll feel it in like three hours it'll catch up with you.
Speaker 1:so I'm that day that you did get the diagnosis was it like an aha, You're like, yeah, that totally makes sense. Or were you confused? I mean, I guess you said that you thought it was just for kids, so could you walk through like those couple days after you got it, like what you were thinking?
Speaker 2:I got the diagnosis, I was like this is okay, I, I don't know anything about this now, apparently. So, you know, I asked for a little bit of basic information. They provided me some basic details, little pamphlet, you know, it's like. Give it a read, do some research, retract out for a follow-up appointment in like a week. We'll just, we'll just uh discuss treatment options from there. So that's what I did and I used by the powers of adhd hyperfocus way too many hours into this stuff, uh, every day. But I, I needed to know, like I, I couldn't not know anymore. So researching it, learning about it, seeing the difference in, like how it appears in different people, like how the symptoms manifest for different people, and seeing the difference in like how it appears in different people, like how the symptoms manifest for different people, and seeing the similarities going on from there and come week later when there's time for my follow-up, I was like you know what I'm understanding now how this works, I can very specifically point out times in my life where it has been glaringly obvious that I have this, so you know. And then reading about the genetics of it and then recognizing that my mom very much was where I got it from, like she and I were the same person, just difference in age and gender, of course. But you know she was my best friend, she was my biggest fan, um, so you know that kind of really put it all, like it was like the nail in the coffin, as it were, uh, to like really discerning, like okay, like there's no, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2:So I went in and I was like all right, what can we do about it? And the first step was, well, okay, let's go into some behavioral practices, see what you do and don't do already and try to apply some stuff to kind of help build your repertoire of ways to deal with your symptoms. Went in, looked at the list, said I do all these things except for this one, and they're like all right, come back in a week and we'll see how it goes. And I came back in a week and I said that doesn't work for me, but everything else is already in place. I could show, like the multiple alarms, the multiple checklists, the multiple calendars all synchronized together, like the amount of effort I put into being organized to not remember, to not forget things. It's exhausting, but you know I could prove that. Hey, like without a doubt. I already do all of these things, and have for a very long time.
Speaker 2:So the next course of action then was treatment. I was like all right, well, I'm open to it, I'm trusting the experts here. I've always thought that it'd be important to trust what the experts are saying to you, because they're trying to help People who work medical, are trying to help you. You know that's just inherent. It would be like trying to help people who work medical are trying to help you. You know that's just inherent. It would be like trying to say, oh well, you know, the computer technician is trying to screw me over by installing a virus. Now the computer technician wants to help you remove the virus. Like that's the kind of thing. Like you call these people for help, so why not let them help? So I was like all right, let's do it. You know, see what happens, why not? So what?
Speaker 1:are the things that you have put in a place. You mentioned the alarms. What are like the five or whatever different things that you have in place as tools in your toolbox?
Speaker 2:so I've been fortunate in recent history to find something to help consolidate a lot of it. I very, I very heavily rely on an application from Microsoft Microsoft To Do which I can use on my phone, my computer and my government computer at work and have it all linked together through my account and be able to track everything. I also have it on my wife's phone so that she can add stuff for me on there and so that way she also can kind of have an idea of like if I have too much going on, then she can see the address inherently if she needed to. So that's a huge kind of tool that I use right now. Otherwise it would be my google calendar, of course, setting up reminders on there, setting reminder times relative to the event, like if the event's 15 minutes away, then I'll set a reminder roughly 45 minutes prior.
Speaker 2:If I have to go pick up my wife from the train station, I set an alarm for 20 minutes prior to her train arriving to make sure I can stop what I'm doing, get ready and go, since it's roughly 8 minutes away. You know everything that I do is relative to the amount of time involved getting to and initiating said task. So alarms very heavily, timers very heavily, a calendar, microsoft to do you know those things. And then I have also an electronic notebook, a remarkable two right now, that I use as well to help with jotting down notes, writing down things just, and I think about um. I'm trying to get better about using the voice recorder on my phone, but I'm not used to it existing because I had to download it.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like inherent to my phone that I could find. So that's something I'm also looking into, trying to like work on, but I have to remember it exists to get to that point yeah, earlier you had mentioned hyper focus.
Speaker 1:Could you walk through that? Because I think some people have heard it and they're like oh yeah, you know, you just sit there and you focus intently, but I think it's more than that, right it's at the base level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very intense focus on On the deeper level. Every other kind of stimuli is very forcefully shut off, and to be interrupted is very agitating. It's really hard to describe in a way that is relatable to people who don't experience this. So when we hyperfocus, we don't recognize signals from our bodies, we don't fully grasp when we're hungry, when we need to use the bathroom, when we're thirsty, and all that stuff kind of falls away If we don't feel it or if we do, it's like let me just finish this spot and then I'll be fine, but then we forget that we're hungry. Like this happens to me all the time. I'll get hungry, my hurt and I'll be like all right, if it just growls, I'll be fine, because after it growls it stops hurting and then I forget about it and I can keep going, so that that happens routinely. Uh, for me, that's, that's my big kind of flaw on that part. But we'll just dive and dive and dive and dive and we'll have 80 tabs open about different things. We'll look, we'll be reading a research article.
Speaker 2:I'm really bad at really really bad about reading research articles all the way through, looking for the peer-reviewed ones, looking at various things, seeing things in there that I don't know or understand. I'll click on that, I'll read through that one next and I'll go back to it, and it's a lot of back and forth. Reading through these very complex literatures, understand something and then going online to social media and finding these things like now that I have terminologies to use and look them up to see like okay, like is there content on this? Can people like kind of express this in their own way, kind of get like the layman's terms and also like various ways that these things manifest in the real world for people? Because while social media, you know, is social media, I still feel like it is very useful as a tool to kind of get a pulse on something through the lens of the world as a whole yeah, that's one reason.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I get a bad rap for being on the airman nco page and they're like oh, you know it's all negative, why are you on there? But I feel like as a leader or just really as a service member in general, just knowing what people are talking about, and obviously I have to filter, like I can't take it all at face value but burying your head in the sand or ignoring it altogether, then you just don't know what's going on. I mean, the page, even though has a bad rep and, you know, sometimes not always the most positive, I mean, I think some changes like getting attention for the dorms that had mold and some other things. I mean maybe that wouldn't have come to light. So, um, yeah, that's definitely an important thing, I think, to keep your your pulse on the situation.
Speaker 1:Um, I wanted to ask hopefully it's not too personal, but you said you just got married. Are there, uh, you, you know tricks or things that you know you've talked with your wife about, like you know, not interrupting or waiting for certain times or things like that, going back to the hyper focus and breaking concentration. Are there things that you do to help each other out?
Speaker 2:so it's ironic because I very heavily suspect that she has inattentive ADHD but she doesn't have a diagnosis, we don't know. We don't have really the time to go into it at the moment, for that part, because we just got her on my orders situated and everything got her on my insurance, like we just did this like not too long ago, maybe a week or two ago, so like getting to that point is kind of on the horizon but not close at hand. But given what I know about it, given my own symptoms and then observing her, like I'm realizing that the biggest thing I can do for her and she can do for me is just be open with communication, and that's true for really any relationship. But it's important to what's the word I'm looking for here? Intentionally communicate, you know. Intentionally listen to your partner, intentionally recognize when you make a mistake, when they make a mistake, you know. Try to explain things, try to reason with each other.
Speaker 2:It's difficult, honestly, it is. There's no easy way about it. It takes time, it takes practice, it takes working with each other and I am incredibly fortunate to have such a supportive partner who you know can deal with me the way I am and can help me with recognizing things that I can't recognize from myself that I do. She recognizes when my medication's worn off, before I do that kind of stuff. She's observant and recognizes and points out these things for me so that I know better about myself and what to do about these things as they occur. I've learned a lot through her about myself. So communication definitely is the biggest thing I can champion for this. It's very intentional communication, very deliberate communication, very open, honest and reciprocal communication yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's awesome. She loves you as you are. That's the most important part, and you guys are just very much each other out. Probably helps if you know she does have a the most important part and you guys are just helping each other out. Probably helps if you know she does have a little bit of it too, so you guys can relate to each other.
Speaker 1:It's easier when you can relate. The next topic we have on is like general mental health awareness. So what have you seen like your understanding of neurodiversity? How does that help contribute to a broader awareness of mental health needs?
Speaker 2:so realizing that covid and teleworking policies from that were hugely helpful for people who are neurodiverse, I think was the biggest thing I started working with recently. Thankfully, my leadership is very supportive and very innovative, focused, very involved in and invested in learning about neurodiversity and trying things, you know, until failure kind of stuff Good idea fairies I like to call themselves their words, not mine. So you know practicing teleworking skills. You know bringing back stuff that we use during COVID times to help for. You know days where we just need that mental health break. You know we had a former chief bass who wanted to instate mental health wellness days and you know it kind of got mocked at the time. But the idea is sound like everyone needs these kinds of days. Just depends on who needs them, when and how frequently.
Speaker 2:Those of us who are neurodiverse are drastically impacted by our environment, by consequence, and so being able to control our environment helps with being able to mitigate a lot of those symptoms.
Speaker 2:Like for myself, I'm very adverse to light. I hate these lights but I can't change them, unfortunately, because the bass is weird. I'm very adverse to sounds as well. So being able to control that environment and reduce what my brain has to perceive in those fields really helps with being able to manage just the day, because it starts to just wear down kind of I hate to use terminology for lack of better words here but kind of at the soul level it really wears us down and it just gets hard to continue and some of that may just be also the coma or depression that I deal with. But at the end of the day, like that is my reality, that is my life. So I have to recognize that other people could be dealing with this and you know. From there I just have to learn what everyone else deals with and try to advocate for that yeah, and that's one thing I hope with the this podcast we can continue.
Speaker 1:It's why I honed in and focus on the term mental fitness, because I feel like mental health seems to be negative connotation. It's a building, it's a person, it's whatever. Mental fitness, the fitness aspect of that is really like continuously working, continuously trying to learn, and always I mean you, you know you do your cardio three times a week. You're trying to work on that. So that fitness aspect, and I think that's perfect. Like we talk about physical aspects all the time, we talk about working out what we're doing, what type of sets, but like you can have sick days. Right, we've had sick days for you know as long as unions or however far back it goes.
Speaker 1:But it's like, like you said, almost mocked or you know made fun of for the mental health day. It's like aren't those the same? Like it's one body. The brain is inside the same body. The brain's a muscle. Yeah, that gets sick, just as the rest of the body gets sick. I don't, I don't know. It's a pretty bizarre. Um, next question I wanted to ask you are what are some simple ways we can all promote better mental health in our communities?
Speaker 2:Being open to acknowledging and admitting when you're wrong. That is the biggest thing you can do Recognizing when you've said something that hurts someone's feelings and they tell you, hey, that's not cool. And realizing like, oh, I made a mistake, I'm sorry, that was my bad. Can you tell me what to say differently or to avoid this hopping entirely? Be open, honest and a little bit vulnerable. It's hard to do, but just being honest with each other, being mindful, being willing to be vulnerable, to be like hey, like this is not cool and here's why because a lot of people are able to be more receptive to requests if you express kind of the vulnerability aspect to it. It opens that empathy for people because, just kind of socially speaking, we have a bad habit of kind of walling off each other at that level. We make a joke because it's a general joke and it gets laughs. But people laugh sometimes because that's what everyone else is doing and they're uncomfortable, but they don't want to like cause a scene. Connecting with each other, being a little bit vulnerable, being aware that sometimes people will be upset by what you say and being willing to acknowledge that and respond accordingly, like, like, that's the honestly, that's the biggest thing you could do for anyone, especially for people who are neurodiverse.
Speaker 2:A lot of us just want to hear you recognize that you know you made a mistake. It's not a big deal If you accept that you did that. That's all we ask for, because all we ever try to do when we explain why we do something is because we want you to understand that, like we're try to do when we explain why we do something is because we want you to understand that, like we're accepting responsibility for what we did, this is why we did the thing. You know it's not us trying to find excuses, it's us explaining like this is what I did and why I did it kind of thing.
Speaker 2:This is how we accept responsibility, but it's very often misconstrued as finding excuses because it sounds very similar. But it's not what we're trying to do and it's a very common theme that I've seen a lot of in social media about neurodiverse people. In generally interacting with people is our attempts to explain is seen as finding excuses. Our attempts to connect and show that we're listening by sharing stories of similar types of what's going on is seen as trying to make it about ourselves like it's. It's not that. It's just how we are able to interact with each other and with the rest of the world after having been exposed to so much downtroddening throughout our lives by consequence of not doing that.
Speaker 1:So do you have any advice on that? I know personally, you know, two things I struggle with a lot is jumping in in the middle of stories because I can't remember and I want to get this thought out and if I don't then I'm going to miss the opportunity and then also relating stories back to myself, and I know I've seen more on, you know, different social media and whatnot that it comes across as rude and it's just interesting to me. I'm coming up on 40 and I've always thought it's like my way to relate, like I'm not saying it's about me, but I find that we're closer in connection. And so are there tips? Maybe you just pick and choose, or maybe you limit the amount of times you do the. You know the things that are seen as disruptive, or do you have any tips on that?
Speaker 2:honestly, it's a topic I've not had to actually worry about until recently Because no one really brought that kind of stuff to my attention. Until more recently I never really had anyone be like oh you just make this up to yourself or you're just looking for excuses, like at best. I say at best, but the most I ever had to deal with it was from my stepfather, who was just very much about accusing people for doing things anyway. So I didn't really have a good way to deal with it. I don't. I still don't really have a good way to deal with it.
Speaker 2:It's just trying to figure it out as you go is unfortunately the way it goes for a lot of times. So you know you'll learn who your people are, who accept you for the way you are, and you, you know, build those relationships and recognize that other people who may be looking down on you for jumping in because you gotta get the thought out or else you'll forget. I'm bad about that personally relating to people to show that you're listening and that you're empathizing, that kind of stuff. Explaining why you do things, that kind of stuff, recognizing that people are looking down on you for doing that because they don't understand, is also key. It helps with kind of separating yourself from their response. It's very easy for us to latch onto that response and shape our personality, our masks, around that. So it's important to recognize what is a masking trait based off a response and what is just genuinely us.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Before we move on from neurodiversity, I'd like you to take a couple minutes and tell us you know different initiatives Neurodiverse, af, dan Kaiser. A lot of people are working on some really cool stuff. What's the current stuff going on right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a lot going on with the Disability Action Team. I joined somewhat recently and they have quite a few lines of efforts with different people working them. Myself, specifically, I'm part of the awareness and advocacy part of those efforts and so my goal is right now to build a working relation with the Royal Air Force folks on neurodiversity for our military individuals, how to help them, how to share ideas with each other, what we can do for each other because we are on foreign soil, we're in a different country, we're not in the States, how we can help each other deal with the differences. You know that stuff. That's kind of where I'm at right now.
Speaker 2:For the rest of the Disability Action Team, a lot of them are working on stuff at the very like policy level for larger corporations, for businesses, for the country. A lot of people are working with the senate and trying to develop certain uh literature to help people, trying to rework some of our documentation that impacts joining the service versus keeping them out, like working on those waiver policies, the restrictions. There's a pilot program going on that I recently heard about that was started back in 2022 I think it was that was working to reduce the restrictions on the waivers for people joining with adhd. So a lot of these things are coming from these initiative groups. I'm not sure the other branches what their initiative groups are called, but for the Air Force it's the Air Diversity Initiative. It's run by the Disability Action Team. So that's kind of very broadly what they're doing and what's going on.
Speaker 1:That's perfect If somebody wanted to get involved. How do they? How do they do?
Speaker 2:uh, so easiest way they could get involved is reaching out to uh, dan kaiser. Daniel kaiser, he has emailed danielkaiser.1 at usafmil. That's how you can reach him if you wanted to get involved. And then they're largely based in the states. There's a few of us who are just overseas by consequence and trying to do our part out here, but that's who you can reach out to to try to get involved that's awesome, good, good projects out there.
Speaker 1:I hope everyone's you know submitting good stuff and progressing on, I think, awareness and just general you know, knowledge and whatnot, pushing things forward, which is good. I know change is difficult for humans, but I think we're, you know, going in the right direction and making things better. The last part we have today is Pokemon, which is going to be super fun.
Speaker 1:So this is awesome. I only know like the first 150, you know, up to Mew Mewtwo, and then I kind of lost it. There's like so many versions now. I had a great time. It's funny, though. Uh, my son uh, he just got um, he borrowed, I think, sword or shield from the library, so he's in it. I'm just so excited to be beside him and getting back into it. So the first question I have Pokemon have a diverse range of characters and traits. How do you see it relating to the concepts of neurodiversity?
Speaker 2:so it's funny, I didn't really think about it too much until more recently. My co-host in my podcast, uh, researching divergence. He's also really big into pokemon and he was the first person I've met since my mom who had the same level of vetted interest in Pokemon as I did. So being able to share that level of just hype energy, as it were, with him has been great. It helps build connections, because a very fundamental theme of surrounding Pokemon is connection. It's building those friendships, those connections with others, with the Pokemon.
Speaker 2:So generalize being kind and I get, yeah, that's kind of a kid theme, those connections with others, with the, with the pokemon. So generalize being kind and I get, yeah, that's kind of a kid theme, but ultimately that's what we all kind of want is the ability to just be kind with each other and for people to be kind to us. So very much about that. Uh, recognizing that we can still communicate with each other. Um, pokemon can't speak, you know human language, can't speak pokemon language, but they can still communicate with each other just fine. They can understand each other even if they speak differently. It's very similar in concept of that regard. So there's a lot of different little things you can point at that could be used in that lens for sure. I just, I guess I'm not really like sat down to put it all together like that necessarily I just use it as a kind of medium to express myself.
Speaker 1:And I think it's cool. You know, thinking about it, you got fire, water, ice, dragon flying, and so I think that's kind of cool, where we're all different and we all do different things and we might have different combinations of dragon and flying or whatever it may be. So maybe it's a stretch, I don't know, but I like the idea of thinking that we're all different, we all bring different things to the table and you need to have the right setup, uh, to be able to defeat, uh, the gem or whatever it may be. So I think that's pretty cool, uh, bringing those unique differences. The next one I had was actually about a tool for connection, but you kind of already went into that. Have you seen other ways or other games or other things that drive connection?
Speaker 2:honestly, um, a lot of games that I play are typically role-playing games so, inherently, connection is a consequence of just being a main character in a role-playing game. You connect with the NPCs by doing quests. You have your party members that you interact with, so a lot of connection is driven by just playing the game. Honestly, the best series I think that portrays this is the Persona series. Persona 5 is the first one that I played Absolutely phenomenal. If I could play it again for the first time, I would every time. I played absolutely phenomenal. If I could play it again for the first time, I would every time. They very heavily rely on a system called social links that builds on your connections with various individuals throughout the world and it empowers you as the main character as you develop those social links. So that's one that I think really is well done in kind of expressing that okay, what's your top three pokemon?
Speaker 2:oh, he would ask this uh, so miss magius is my first, for sure, I'm also a really huge fan of Mimikyu, and I guess number three would be my number three, I wonder, I guess.
Speaker 1:Chandelure. I'm really big on ghost types. Okay, so when you played the original, which one did you pick? Squirtle the original three.
Speaker 2:Oh, squirtle, okay, yeah, because I like war turtles design. Now, my mom was really big into charizard but I I was very much a huge fan of war turtles design. Specifically that's why I went with squirtle.
Speaker 1:So your mom bought red and you bought blue my brother played red.
Speaker 2:My mom watched the show with us, but she didn't really play the games, so she was very much invested in ashes, charizard specifically what do you think it was about pokemon that really drew you into the specific you know?
Speaker 2:uh, I think the level of involvement that my mom also displayed was the biggest deciding factor, thinking back on it, because it was the first game of its kind that ever played. I never really played any monster collectors before that. They just weren't really that commonplace per se. But you know, with my mom being so heavily invested in it, my brother being so heavily invested in it, you know, it kind of just was a consequence because I found joy in sharing that, those experiences with them. And so, while my mom may not have understood the game so much, she understood the show just fine and we would wake up every saturday morning to watch the new episode. You know it, it was part of our ritual we did every morning, uh, every saturday morning, and that's really what drove my kind of hyper-focused, hyper-fixated obsession with Pokemon in the way that it is.
Speaker 1:Which is interesting because that's really connection, right? So it's the connection with another person. I mean, the show happened to be in there. It's interesting, it could have really been any game or any show, but the connection between those two. So I think that goes back to the point. We brought up a couple different times about the connection. I just find it so odd how different times are. I hate to be like the old guy back in my day but.
Speaker 1:I remember when we used to play 64 and all four of us were sitting on the same couch. Yep, so, even though we were playing games and maybe zoning out a little bit because the game was in front of us, we were looking at each other's screens right.
Speaker 2:Yes, a little screen peeking.
Speaker 1:We're kind of you know, in golden eye trying to odd jobs. It every time just so odd that, like you can't really do that anymore. I mean, my wife the other day tried to go get a game where we could play together and everything's one player online, or like we ended up getting need for Speed and just switching off who was driving the car at the time. It's like we can't sit and play together. The times have definitely changed. I think that connection with the human is a little lost.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's just kind of one by consequence, because now that we have such widely supported internet in general, it's easier to connect around the world. But by consequence also, a lot of people kind of live socially isolated from each other in a way, like we. We interact with each other at work, sure, or at school, sure, but those deeper level connections aren't as prominent as a consequence, especially in adulthood. And so really, you don't see the couch co-op games as often you'll see them, or usually nintendo tries to put them out. Uh, I know one that comes to mind readily is it takes two, it's a couch co-op game.
Speaker 2:That one a lot of people like, so they're still making them. They're still out there. There's just so few because of the availability. Of the internet now allows people to make online co-op as opposed to couch co-op.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I enjoyed it takes two. I was a little disappointed. The game started with, like, all that fighting with the, the, the parents and they're like talking about divorce, so that my son's like what's divorce? I'm like, oh geez, are we starting this right?
Speaker 2:now.
Speaker 1:I don't want to explain this, but it was a. It was a great game. I wish they maybe could have done without that fighting in the beginning. Well, I got a one or two last questions for you, so what's one piece of advice you'd give to listeners about embracing neurodiversity, mental health awareness or even connecting through shared interests, like pokemon?
Speaker 2:uh, like I said before, being vulnerable is honestly the hardest but most important step you can take in the communication process with others being willing to kind of lower your guard and connect with others. It's hard to do, especially with the way communication works these days, with the availability of the internet, people being able to be whoever they want online. You know it's it's hard. It's way harder now than it used to be, I feel like, but it's still important to remember that that kind of is the biggest key in developing bonds is being able to share kind of those vulnerable moments with each other.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. So if you see someone in an airport that looks overwhelmed, it's too loud or something like that, if you did see someone that looked like they were in a difficult situation, sometimes I'm always torn Will it look like pity, or will it look like I'm trying to do something that I'm not supposed to do? Or do you have any advice if, and be more focused on that?
Speaker 2:individual needs help you know, if they look like they need help, there's nothing wrong with asking. And easiest way I kind of deal with it is these other people. I don't know who they are, I'll never see them again. Likely, you know, the likelihood of me running into them again and even remembering is very, very, very low. It's a nearly zero, non-zero number, as I call it, but it's percentage wise, mitigatable, I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2:So it's easier for me to approach a situation knowing that and worst case, I guess they say no and you just move on right, you know, but you know, like you know, this person checked up on me but you don't know what they're going to go talk about and that's okay. Like you don't have to know. It's easy for me to say that in a theoretical situation. Of course I get that. But learning how to embrace that mentality is also a huge factor in being able to kind of confront those fears. Is recognizing, like your level of attention to yourself, the way you perceive yourself amongst the environment, is not nearly as significant as one would think, like not that many people are paying attention to you, not that many people are concerned about what you're doing. It's not as huge as you make it out to yourself to be, and that's just my consequence. We don't recognize that because it's not really taught to us that way that's so funny too.
Speaker 1:When you hear people talking or see people talking in a group, for some reason, you're always like must be talking, talking about me. Probably not, probably not. The chances are pretty low. There's so much to talk about. It's probably not about you. So, eric, thanks for coming out. I wanted to give you the final takeaway. If you could leave our listeners with one takeaway, talked for about 53 minutes, what would you pull from today's conversation as that final takeaway?
Speaker 2:Be willing to trust in yourself and seek the help that you need. Be willing to advocate for yourself. It's important because no one's going to just do it for you. You have to be able to speak up. It's hard, but you have to find the way that works for you.
Speaker 1:And if you don't, I mean you're going to continue and you're going to have things compound, right? So I mean I guess that's ripping the bandaid, but get the help that you need and then, you know, find those tools that work for you. Well. Thank you, eric. Thanks for coming out. I encourage listeners to share their thoughts. I'm on social media. I got Facebook, the buzzsprout, tik TOK, instagram. I'm old so I'm trying all the different stuff.
Speaker 1:It's hard to get content out, but it's out as much as I can. Please let me know what you think. I love you all. See ya Bye.
