Disability Pride Month

Have y'all gotten any of the rain from the hurricane?

Oh, we got flooding rains all weekend.

Hello, hello, hello!

This is Danielle and Vida with NDL Loud, and we are talking Disability Pride Month. It is Disability Pride Month, and we didn't talk much about it last week because, well, it was a holiday weekend. I was discombobulated, so were every client I worked with.

But everybody was discombobulated.

But let's talk about being proud of our disabilities. And yes, your disability is something you can be proud of. I mean, there are parts of it that freaking suck, okay?

I'll agree.

I'll stating the obvious that being disabled, whatever your flavor of disability is, can suck. There's nothing wrong with it sucking. However, yeah. There is a lot to say about focusing on only the parts that suck.

There is because okay, it's the whole deal about being mindful and about celebrating the positive things. If all you do is immerse yourself in the negative aspects of of your disability, it's going to suck more than it would from just living regular life because you are swimming in the negative soup.

And by swimming in the negative soup, you perpetuate the negative soup. And when you perpetuate the negative soup, you create more negative soup. And and and and and. There's a bit to it, and one of the biggest things I've realized over time—again, I've known most of my life I was ADHD, and 27, 26 years that I was also autistic—but understanding to find the good in life is there. There's a lot of toxic mindset mindset bullshit out there. This is not. Those things, right? Because they're—

there's— go ahead, sorry.

Just find the good. And we all have different good. Like, what my superpower— and I call them superpowers because the things that I do good, I do good better than the average person. Like 10, 20, 30 times better than the average person. That's a freaking superpower. Yeah, I do that despite Having ADHD, autism, EDS, a million autoimmune issues, having cancer, all of these things. I do it despite that. I have superpowers.

Yeah. And I mean, and what she means by all the toxic stuff out there is like there's people that are swimming in the negative soup and that's toxic. But there's also people with their toxic positivity. They're like, oh, you just need to try harder. It'll do this. It'll do that. And it's like, Okay, I am not going to lie to you or you know blow smoke at you or whatever it is that people say. The thing is that there are going to be days that suck, but our point is you have the power to make them worse and suck more, or be better and suck less. So it's really. Decisions over time, right? Are you making— are you focusing on more positive things than you are negative things? Are you making more positive decisions than negative decisions?

Well, and it's not even positive decisions over negative decisions. It is choosing to fight and overcome. And, and I want to be clear that there are days that every single thing I do— putting my shoes on, brushing my teeth, drinking water, eating a cheese stick— everything is a fight. But— and we all have those days, but you have to be willing to fight that fight and not give up under the oppression and shame and fear and frustration of it.

Yeah.

And you can't do that on your own. I think that's one of the biggest things that I learned to be proud of myself of is asking for help.

And you have to advocate for yourself. Like, that's one of the number one things that we teach clients to do is to advocate for themselves. And it's not just about acknowledging and making other people acknowledge that This is my disability or whatever it is. Advocating for yourself is as simple as asking for help. But that is really counterintuitive to how a lot of us have been conditioned growing up.

We're afraid to ask for help. And I see this with ADHDers so much, terrified to ask for help, that you're going to fail. If you ask for help and you still don't do the thing, it's your failing. Or if you ask for help and it's not the right kind of help, it's because you did something wrong, but asking for help has made being Autie HD a superpower. 90%, okay, 80% of the time, and maybe some days even 25% of the time. But by having the help and support systems that I need, I don't fail hardly at all now.

Right.

I mean, do we all have days? I mean, the neurotypical person fails. Everybody fails at something. But understanding that my support system is the thing that makes me successful.

Yeah.

So why are you proud of being ADHD?

For me, my brain works really, really fast. So a lot of times some of my frustration is because I'm already there, like my brain has processed the information and already there. And, uh, so sometimes I have to sit and wait for everyone else to catch up, but I'm proud of myself because I can process information so fast. Sometimes I can see things that other people can't.

So I'm proud of myself because I can learn everything and regurgitate it. I'm— and everybody says this around me, so I'm not just bragging— I'm walking Google because I learn so much. The woman who is collect— about to collect her 5th master's degree, and everybody's like, oh, isn't that so hard? No. Why do you think that's hard? I've done it 5 times because it's easy. That's my superpower— learning and being able to take that information I've learned and turn it into something that I can use with somebody else, support somebody else with, give somebody else the support they need so that they don't have to go through the hard— the part that would be hard for them.

Right.

Um, learning, absorbing, hyper-focusing— all of those things are huge parts of making me who I am.

Yeah, and there are times, like, because there's good days and bad days, so there are times where because my brain works so fast, I get massive anxiety, and I have— I get irritated with people because I have to wait for them to catch up. So it's the whole deal. It really depends on my mental outlook on the day.

That is a big thing in understanding that I have to set myself up for success all day long. And again, this is where that fight comes in. I know that I am going to fail today if I don't set myself up for success. So what does success look like for me? It looks like getting up, planning out my day, and writing everything down and color coding it. That is part of my success for the day. Checking in with my support system so that my support system can support me, asking for that help. And then I have accountability built in throughout the day because I've built those things in that creates the success for myself. If I don't check in with somebody by like 7 AM, my people around me know, uh-oh, something's wrong. Hey Danielle, what's going on? Why aren't you checking in? Why? So not only do I self-accommodate, if I'm not self-accommodating, I have other people who are going to walk around me and build that structure around me to accommodate me today.

Yeah.

And I know VIDA has the same thing. Part of that is because we're part of each other's support structures, because we need that. And we know we need that. And, and every time you look at somebody who's successful, like 7 Habits of Highly Successful People or whatever, 90% of those people in those books are neurodivergent. I swear to you, some of them are actually out and proud to be neurodivergent. But almost everybody in those books is neurodivergent. You want to know why? They've learned to accommodate themselves, right? ADHD people, ADHD people, autistic people, bipolar people, people with PTSD, CPTSD, all of the letters— when they're successful, it's because they have support system around them.

And but here's the thing too. Okay, we need that. But as parents, we do that for others also. And as coaches, we do it for others. So here's the— here is the funny thing, right? I'm proud of my disability. This is how my brain works. It allows me to see things, stuff like that. And I am able to hold space and to help other people manage their disabilities, their neurodiversity. I'm able to do that. But it is very easy for me to show up for other people. It is really hard for me to show up for myself. So that's why you have to have that support system, that community and everything, because we 9 times out of 10 are not going to remember to feed or water ourselves, but we'll remember to tell our kids to. Mm-hmm.

We'll remember to tell our kids to, we'll remember to tell our clients to, we'll, we'll remember all of the things. But you want to know what one of the best things that I did for me and my support system is? Like 10 years ago, I decided I needed to do lots of body doubling and offer it to my clients. Body doubling is something I have done long before it was a buzzword for the ADHD community and TikTok. I've been doing it for 10 plus, maybe 20 plus years. I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

10+ years. I know it's always worked for me. And daily check-ins, I knew they worked for me. So I built a group program 10 years ago with my clients to do that for them because I knew I could show up for them. And by showing up for them, it automatically meant I was showing up for myself. So sometimes we need to be that support person and do the thing because it's the thing we most need. Right. Another reason why I'm proud of myself, because I figured out, hey, if I have other people to do this for, that means I'll get it done too.

Yeah. Because you're already doing it. You're just tricking your brain into doing it for other people. So I mean, it's one of those things, whatever works, whatever your system is, and most of us that are older neurodivergent adults Many, many of us are late diagnosed or self-diagnosed. We have systems in place that we developed as pure survival skills when we were in school.

Mm-hmm.

The, the interesting thing is that we evolve our brains, our hormone levels, like our health, everything evolves as you get older. So the coping things, the survival skills that we developed in 7th grade may not be covering, covering the scope of things at 44 years old. So you might have to develop or learn some new things. And that's okay. Because new things are shiny and feel like dopamine and you'll learn them.

Yeah. It's awesome. So what are some success stories you've seen because of having the right support and the right attitude about ADHD, autism, whatever, that you've seen in some of your clients?

Um, I think that learning to advocate for themselves and to not be afraid to advocate for themselves. So it takes a mindset shift to ask for help. And then it takes a further shift to be able to unapologetically ask for help. And I don't mean walking in there and kicking the door open to the break room and be like, that's it. I need noise-canceling headphones. I'm talking about going into HR and politely and firmly stating that I need this and this is why. And I think those are huge successes because before we would just all suffer in silence and then we'd end up burned out and we wouldn't know what had happened.

So I think what I mean, I've been doing this a long time. So I obviously have a lot of cool stories. But I've got one today. I have a client too. He's an ADHD client. He's a voice actor and an actor. And he won Best Voice Award last night at the Leo Awards in Canada.

Wow, that's great.

Because he uses the system and he learned— him and I worked together long enough that he knows how to accommodate and support himself. And he did something that required him to do All kinds of work on his own. He couldn't body double. He couldn't do those things and create the accommodations he needed for himself in order to succeed and do this. So how do you support yourself? That is one of the biggest, the biggest, biggest, biggest things is you can be proud of yourself when you get yourself the support you need. Would you be proud of yourself? If you had a housekeeper, for most of us, that's a huge— that's, I've reached the pinnacle of success. I have a housekeeper.

I would 100% be proud of myself for getting a housekeeper because that meant I could afford it. So I had made it to a level where I could. And I tell people this a lot, like Warren Buffett does not make his own bed. He's not mowing his own grass. Like, he's out there being creative, making billions of dollars and all that stuff. He is outsourcing his executive function, like the stuff at the house, right? Because we as neurodivergent people, we can do executive function tasks. We just can't do all of them consistently on a day-to-day basis. And the great illusion of life is all these famous people, all these celebrities, all these billionaires, all these ultra-successful people are doing that. And it's like, no, no, they aren't.

They aren't shopping, they aren't grocery shopping for themselves, they aren't washing their laundry, they aren't cleaning their house, they're not mowing their lawns. Heck, they're probably not making their own doctor's appointments. They're probably not Deciding what meal they're going to make for their family today. Heck, they're probably not even making the meal. Um, they're not— they have so many executive function pieces taken out of their hand. They've given them away. By giving them away, they make themselves more successful.

Yeah.

And that is— and many of those, not all, okay, A few of those are neurotypical people, and by giving them away, their executive functioning skills work better.

Yeah.

When allowed to not be in the overwhelm, in the, the mire of life, the pit, the swamp, the swamp of ADHD, when, when we can kind of walk along top of that swamp because somebody else took something off of our plate, Our brains work better than everybody else's.

Oh, it's amazing.

So how do you remove some of the executive function? Unfortunately, most of us can't afford housekeepers, do our lawn, and people to call and make doctor's appointments and go pick up our prescriptions for us and all of the things. We can't afford that.

If you are not living alone, you need to make sure, like, you're going to have to give some things to other people. Not all of the things, some of the things. And one of the things that I struggle with is giving them to my kids because everyone in this house is neurodivergent. So if I give it to them, it's about a 50/50 shot that they'll remember to do it. So it takes a lot of levels of executive function for me to assign the task, follow up with the task, like, you know, make sure the task is done accordingly and efficiently. Like, that is a level of executive function that I don't think we touch on. Like, I struggle with my own self-care, but as a parent, I'm also responsible for reminding my children to do their self-care. So it's like, it's that thing. It's like, there's— I need a— I need about 45 assistants and, and a maid and a lawn care person and all that other stuff. But the reality of the world I live in is that I have to make lists. I have to— we are a team that lives in this house. And now my kids are old enough, like they're teenagers, that it's like everyone can pitch in. Like, I'm not expecting my 5-year-old to scrub the kitchen floor, but my 13-year-old can Lazily mop it. You know, it's like, it'll be okay.

A lot of it comes down to what systems and supports do you have for yourself? I, I'm an Apple girly, so I have all of the Apple products. And yes, I know that's a luxury, but I use Reminders and I use Siri and I use Alexa and I use my husband and I use pen and paper and Post-it notes and stuff to remind myself to do all of the things because I forget to eat lunch, eat breakfast. brush my teeth. I have lists, checklists for everything because I forget. And decision fatigue is a big deal for me. So I make—

Mm-hmm.

And by doing that, I've supported myself. I have a Vita and I have a Gina to remind me to do the things that I forget to do that they, they are good at remembering. But they can't— but I will also Vita will ask me a question if I've done something, and I will turn around and I know I should ask Vita that same question right back because she will have forgotten to do it for herself.

Yep. There's been lots of meetings where we sit down and like, oh, I need to eat lunch. Oh yeah, I haven't done that either.

Oh yeah, thank you for reminding me. I forgot that. But this is why we have community. This is why we have accountability. This is why we have support. Support and accountability is not a bad word. Support is not a bad word. And, and I know for a lot of us accountability can be a very negative word for us, but I want you to change that because it can be the power. It can be what makes you proud of yourself today, of what you've got.

Yes.

When you have the proper kind of accountability. So why are you proud of your disability today? I want to hear from Everyone, anyone, tell us why you're proud of your disability. If you're not proud of your disability, why aren't you proud of it? Tell us why you're not proud of your disability. Yeah. Tell us where the stumbling blocks are. And I'm gonna tell— and I don't care how sick you are. I don't care what it is. There's a way to get some of the support that you need, I promise. And, and it may not be the way you're thinking. Let somebody else outside of you think of ways that you can get the support you need because Everybody else will have better ideas than you will. I guarantee it. I had a problem the other day, and I don't remember what it was. And I was complaining to my bestie about it. And she's like, well, why don't you just do XYZ? And I'm like, oh, I didn't think of that. And it was something that took me a minute to do. I don't even remember what it was now.

Yeah.

But often having a community of other neurodivergent brains to complain to will be the thing that will help you get out of the mire and help you find success in your day and stop living in that toxic wasteland of where your disability is. So come ask the question. We're here to help. We're here to support you. We have a free face— or free, uh, online community for it. Come join us. We also have paid options. Come join us because we can help.

Yeah.

Because you can be proud of your disability. I promise because I get to live it. Okay, 80% of the time. Have a good day, everyone.

Bye, guys.