From Burnout to Breakthrough: Twice Exceptional Success Tips

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we're gonna be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. I'm excited because I've just spent a good amount of time already speaking to this person. I know that we're gonna have an amazing conversation, and I almost forgot to push record really, because I was just having so much fun in the conversation. So this is gonna be great. I get to bring you an amazing guest today. Her name is Diane Wingert, and she is a 4 Former UCLA-trained psychotherapist turned business strategist and coach for business owners with ADHD traits, with or without the official diagnosis, which I think is also really awesome. Her mission is to mentor those who are driven but distracted to overcome their limiting beliefs and disempowering habits to create an ADHD-friendly business and lifestyle. Yes, please. Diane's no BS approach combines decades of experience with how she leverages her own ADHD. Her goal is to take you from overdelivering and overwhelmed to focused, fired up, and flame retardant. Diane is the host of the top-rated ADHD-ish podcast, a Peloton enthusiast, coffee lover, dog mama, and profane Buddhist. Welcome to the show, Diane.

Gosh, I want to meet myself after all that.

It's always fun to hear somebody else read your bio, right?

Love it.

That's awesome. We're going to be talking something about really neat, something I know that I know internally here at Geeky Girl, we're excited for the information, for the knowledge, for the conversation, but we're going to be talking about twice exceptional, which is 2E gifted and ADHD. Could you decrypt that for everybody, please?

Yes. I love talking about this because so much is being said about ADHD right now. So many women are being diagnosed, are self-identifying identifying, are figuring this out in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. And a small slice of them were gifted girls. Now, what's interesting about this subset of the ADHD family, and because this also applies to me, I was identified as gifted in the 4th grade, didn't get my official ADHD diagnosis until decades later. My daughter is also twice exceptional or 2E, which is the common term for a woman who, or a man who's gifted and ADHD. But most of us don't realize that there's a lot of overlap between the two and that there are some people out there who have both. And I happen to be one of them and I love working with others just like me.

That's beautiful. So you're saying that you typically get identified as a child as being gifted. That's what you're saying?

Yes, for females, for females. Because the thing is, I— one of my expressions about why so many women are realizing well into their adult life that they're ADHD is that you can never find what you're not looking for. And no one has been looking for ADHD in females until very recently. Now, I would like to think maybe our grandchildren, that we will routinely assess girls for ADHD and we will have better diagnostic criteria. criteria because it doesn't present the same way in girls as it does in boys, but also that we will realize that ADHD is not something we outgrow, that there are just as many females as males and people frankly of all genders. And giftedness is also not something you outgrow, but most women I meet who are gifted think they have. Isn't that fascinating?

It makes sense. I mean, on both levels, I remember being as a child, My teacher would say things to me like, stop daydreaming, right? I wasn't daydreaming. I was focusing on something else so I could possibly stay long enough for your really boring conversation, right?

Right.

So it did look different in girls. Boys were bouncing off the walls. We were very, very busy in our mains, which is very different. In terms of women thinking that they're growing outta their giftedness, I think that it comes down to, let's be honest, we get, we, we feel like we have to put ourselves in a box in order to get through. We have to present a certain way to be a wife, to be a mother, to be accepted in society. to fit into these other little boxes. And I think that the first thing to go is the creative. I think that we, we let go of the creative first because it's the thing that's looked as most superfluous.

That almost makes me tear up, Angela, because I was a very creative girl. And in high school, I was heavily into performing arts. I was making my own art. I had— I was writing poetry. I was writing songs. I was You know, literally creative to the max. But I got this idea and I, I think it's still alive and well in our culture that art and creativity are self-indulgent, that no one makes a living being a creative, and it's time to get serious when you go to college. So I literally put all of that away very consciously because I felt that was what society expected of me. Little did I know that our creativity is Probably the source of our best gifts and greatest contributions, regardless of what kind of career or path we are in. Creative people are the ones who change the world for the better, and we should never suppress creativity. But a lot of parents, well-meaning parents, think they're doing their kids a disservice by allowing them to indulge their creativity. It's really a shame. Yeah.

Well, and I think that creativity looks different In, in, in all spectrums, right? I mean, you can, you can be creative. And, and this is something that I struggled with because I used to say I'm not creative. I used to say that. It used to be like very, very— it was part of my story. I'm not creative. I was always— I was, I was in the musical arts. I was in all those kinds of things in high school and whatnot. But my creativity comes from my out-of-the-box thinking.

Mm-hmm.

It's, it's the way that I can see things way different than other people can. And that is my creativity. I can't, I can't paint you a picture of a horse. I mean, I can, but you might not see it as a horse the way I see it as a horse, right? But I don't think creative creativity is just about the arts. It's about how we think and how we use our brains. And sometimes it comes out in music or like somebody creates a new song or, you know, they create a new work of art in terms of like they're, you know, creating a play or those kinds of things. And other times it comes out Cancer research. I mean, you can't, you can't, you can't create a new thing, like you said, unless you're creatively thinking about a thing first. People who come up with new solutions and vaccines and all those, they have to be creative. I think it's just different.

No, I agree with you 1,000%. As a matter of fact, I had the same words came out of my mouth. I'm not a creative. I have 2 very creative children out of 3, but all of us, because I passed on my ADHD to all 3 of my kids from 2 different marriages. So these are some potent genes here. We are all out-of-the-box thinkers. We all have a unique perspective. We have different gifts and different interests and different things that we're curious about and fascinated by. But it's the way we look at things that make us creative. And I think for women who grow up as gifted girls, but also have trouble staying on task, get bored easily. Probably aren't hyperactive, but their minds are active AF. They may talk a lot, which is how you're going to see hyperactivity play out in females. You know, you're called a Chatty Cathy. You're not physically hyperactive or disruptive. You're not pushing and shoving and can't wait your turn on the field like a little boy, but you may be constantly looking around at what other people are doing in the classroom, not because you want to copy because you're probably smarter than all of them, but because you're curious why it's taking them so long to finish the quiz that you could do with half your brain tied behind your back. So it's interesting how girls who have ADHD and girls who are gifted share a lot of these traits, which, you know, more easily bored. I refer to it as we treat boredom like a life-threatening condition. We have a very low tolerance for boredom and we have a low threshold for boredom. I used to get in trouble as far back as the 2nd grade. Because the teacher would be asking a question. I knew where she was going. I not only knew the question she was asking before it was halfway finished, but I knew what the answer was. So, you know, and I'm sitting in the front row, right in the center. She can't miss me. Not because I was a teacher's pet, I wasn't. In fact, most of my teachers found me very annoying, but because I didn't want to wear the glasses that I desperately needed. And as soon as contacts came out, I was one of the first people to get them. But I always had my hand up in the air. And that was actually perceived in a negative way, which is one of the reasons why I think so many gifted girls who become gifted women and then later realize they're twice exceptional become over-givers, because we've internalized a lot of the negative messages from childhood. If you are very curious, you have a fast-moving mind, you cannot tolerate boredom. you're going to be a kid that is placing a lot more demands on your parents, on your teachers, on your caregivers, on your babysitters, on your soccer coaches, because you need an F-ton of stimulation. And grownups generally don't like that. They want little girls in particular to be submissive, to be obedient, to do what they're told, and to not be demanding. So a very smart kid who's really eager to learn and can't see any reason to be in that fricking classroom otherwise is going to internalize a lot of negative messages, which will later turn into perfectionism and people pleasing traits. It makes sense, doesn't it?

Yes. Yeah. And people pleasing for sure. I, I remember clearly I was in grade 1 or 2. I think it was 2. I hadn't done my math homework the night before and all the other kids were sitting in the circle and they were getting to listen to the book that the teacher was was gonna read, and I had to sit in the back of the room and do my math homework. Little Angela was a little pissed. Not, not, not a lie. I was mad. And I, I can clearly see, you know, remember those old glue bottles? They're clear, but they had the, like, a brown nipple on top.

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

So I started at the front of the book, and I remember doing this. I was like banging it against the book, and I flipped the page. And I banged it against the book and I flipped the page. I glued the entire fricking math book together while she was reading her story. They do not like little girls to ask questions or stand up or anything because the school psychologist was called. There was like this whole thing that had to happen with my mom. Like, oh, they thought that there was this problem child. I was, I was just acting out. And yes, then comes people pleasing.

Right.

Because I'm expressing myself. I'm showing you what my needs are. You're clearly not listening to me. I'm not being heard. Fantastic. I'm going to shut down and just get through life now.

And you're also othering me because this is the thing that I think is— I will never climb off of this soapbox, Angela, is that our culture tells us that we should be ourselves, that we should be unique, that we should be different because there's nothing wrong with that. But so help me God, if you actually act on that message, you're going to be othered. You're going to be shamed. You're going to be blamed. You're going to be distanced. You're going to be rejected. You're going to be, you know, you're going to, you're going to get the message pretty darn quick that if you actually want to belong, you need to fit in. Brené Brown has a lot to say about why those 2 things are not the same. But of course we're, we're human beings and even the most shy and introverted among us do not want to be rejected because our lizard brains perceive that as a threat to our very survival. So we're going to do whatever we need to do to what I call pass for normal.

Mm-hmm.

We're going to mask our neurodivergence. We're going to mask everything about us that stands out, that draws attention to us, that makes us appear different, which is going to be perceived in a negative way. And we're going to do our very damnedest to fit in. But looking back over my life, I wish I had realized much sooner that was doomed to fail. Because even if we force ourselves into the box, some part of us is going to stick out because it's just too much. But also, it suppresses the things that are best about us, and most of us become anxious and depressed living that way, which is why most women, and especially most Twice exceptional women, before they ever figure out they're twice exceptional, they're going to earn themselves a diagnosis of anxiety and depression, oftentimes an eating disorder or a substance use disorder, because all the effort it takes to cram themselves into a box they were never meant to occupy is exhausting and makes them symptomatic.

Yeah. And, you know, moving through life when you've been told You are not normal, but you have to be. Ultimately, you get into those teenage years, you're gonna self-medicate in any way possible that you can.

Mm-hmm.

And you're not realizing what you're doing really, cuz you're not intelligent enough at that point. Like you don't have all the skills, right? You're, you're playing in your own sandbox cuz you can't share it with anybody cuz nobody wants to know what's going on in that brain of yours. And so I think that you're right, like a lot of those things you end up coming through and then as you become an adult, you're like, well, hold on a second. Right. And that's when, of course, you have those diagnoses of the anxiety, the depression, the, you know, all those other things is because you've been bottling up and squeezing yourself to death for so long. And yeah, you're sticking out and finally you just explode.

And it's not satisfying. I think one of the things that this takes me back to having to go through sorority rush, and I say having to go through because in true ADHD fashion, I didn't sign up for student housing. And all of a sudden it was time to move to Westwood to go to UCLA for my undergraduate degree. And I realized, oh shit, I don't have a place to live. And you know, there's like 33,000 undergraduates at UCLA. There wasn't exactly an abundance of places. So dorms were full, apartments were full. And I'm like, well, maybe if I could get a sorority to take me, I'll at least have a place to live. So I went through sorority rush and I'll tell you what, I was the queen of masking. and fitting in because my very survival depended on it. I wasn't going to be able to live in my car and I couldn't commute from my parents' house. And I learned these are the things, this is how you have to behave in order to get people to accept you, but at what cost? And I think, um, we ultimately are— we're disavowing ourselves, we are sacrificing ourselves, we are basically Turning all of that negative— all of those negative messages we heard against ourselves. And the more you can pass for normal, the more you can be among neurotypical people and have them think you're one of them, the more you get hooked on that, and the more years of your life you waste not being true to yourself. So when you finally do decide, Oh my God, I can't do this anymore. It's quite terrifying to realize you probably are going to have to start all over because none of these people are going to want the real you, which is what you've been telling yourself to justify doing it the whole time. If I let people see who I really am, they won't like me. Yes, but the ones who are true to themselves Will become your best friends. And those are the people, those are the only people you're really going to enjoy anyway. Let's be honest, we forced ourselves to be accepted by people that we didn't even like. What a dumb idea that was, you know?

But really intelligent of you to find a solution that allowed you to be able to find, to look after your needs, right? I mean, it's great that you were able to find a solution that Allowed you to do that. Was it in detriment to yourself? Probably. I can't imagine doing that. I just, I just can't, you know, and also I, I wasn't, I was 30 before I got diagnosed with ADHD. So I had a lot of years of masking and not even knowing I was masking, right? But I knew what I didn't like, and that was people who I didn't like spending time with. So I, I don't think I could have done it.

But see, the thing is, is that I, I realize now, and I, it was such a point of pride for me, Angela. It was a point of pride for me, and I used to refer to it as passing for normal.

Mm-hmm.

And I was proud. I was proud that I passed for normal. I was proud that by the time I actually got my official ADHD diagnosis, that people were like, you really?

No.

I mean, the first ADHD group I was part of, I had literally people messaging me in the chat privately saying, You're not really— you're like a journalist. You're doing some like research or something. Like, and I thought, yeah, now I get it. It's like, now that I'm finally able and willing to like come out of the ADHD closet, people are saying, no, you don't belong here. Because I had become such an expert at masking, right?

Right.

And, and the people pleasing and the perfectionism and all that. But, you know, I, I wanna, I wanna say something else that I think is even more important than what we've talked about already. I think there's another really important reason that women who are twice exceptional are over-deliverers and tend to become overwhelmed and are at a very high risk for burnout is because one of the things that's so special about being gifted is that what you can envision, what you can imagine, Your imagination is so expansive. And once you've envisioned something, whatever it is, it could be the perfect pair of shoes. It could be the perfect Christmas dinner. It could be the perfect signature cocktail. It could be whatever, anything, the perfect coaching program. Once you've imagined it in your mind, Angela, you become attached to that, that vision.

I do.

And then you don't want to settle for anything less. And what I think most gifted women don't realize, and why so many of them become depressed, is because in their imagination they can picture everything in its most ideal form, in its most optimal form. They imagine everything in like best-case scenario. In a perfect world, it would be like this. And because they've attached to that possibility They don't want to live with anything less, and they're always trying to close the gap between what is and what they imagine could be, when most of the people around them don't even understand what they're talking about when they try to explain it. That is isolating, it is alienating, it is lonely AF.

Mm-hmm.

And I think over time, unless you can find other people Who are like-minded and like-brained, you're going to be a very lone wolf, probably, you know, burned out, sad, and just not even wanting to try to find people to connect with because it's just too hard when people don't get it and don't get you.

Yeah, I, I totally hear that, like the isolation that you feel when you, you, you're trying to express And people can't understand or see what you're trying to convey. And I think that, you know, you're right when you said once you come out of the closet, so to speak, that you have to start over. And, and you do, because you are now surrounded by people who think you're too much and they just need to go away, right?

Yeah.

But the other side to it is, is there's some beauty there. Like, now when things happen In my community of people that I surrounded myself with, when things happen outside in that neurotypical place, I go, oh, that's not what I experience, right? Because I've spent the time to really collate, to really make sure that I have the right people surrounding me. And I think there's a beautiful moment there. And I agree that perfectionism, it makes total sense when you know this could be the utopia that we're looking for. Why can't you all see it? It makes sense why we would strive for perfectionism in everything we do. It totally makes sense. Yeah.

I mean, I think everything, well, my philosophy is that all behavior is habit forming and all behavior is functional if you understand what you're trying to accomplish. Right. So when people talk about kids with ADHD being manipulative and they say it like it's a bad word, I think manipulative is the word that we use when A clever child is trying to get their needs met. I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think when we do things that might be hurtful to ourselves, you know, too much alcohol or whatever, let's just use the alcohol example. Sure, there are negative consequences to your health, to your mental health, you know, maybe to your career, to your relationships. But what is the function? What is the job that you've given that alcohol to do? That you haven't been able to find a better way to make that happen. Like, you know, so I think that we're, you know, all human beings just want to feel better and function better, and we can get ourselves into all kinds of trouble in the attempt to do that. But when you're neurodivergent and you don't know it, or when you're, when you're twice exceptional and you're trying to apply all the things that you hear people who are ADHD who are not gifted, and you're thinking, well, that kind of doesn't, doesn't apply, or I, it doesn't make sense, or I don't think that would work for me. And then people think you're either thinking you're a special snowflake or you're being a help-rejecting complainer, or maybe you get, you're a narcissist. It's like, no, I think the more forms of neurodivergence we have, like you might be gifted, you might be on the autism spectrum. You might be ADHD and you might be dyslexic. The more layers you have, the more trial and error it's going to require for you to find what works for you. And the more important it is for you to find people that get you, even if they're not, even if they don't stack up with all of the differences. I try to signal now in public because I spent far too many years cramming myself into a box and feeling really unhappy. Even if I was fitting in. Now I tend to wear shirts in public with slogans like, you're too much for some people, they're not your people. Or the one that I've currently been rocking says, it takes a village, now accepting applications. I want my people to find me and not have to go, is she or isn't she? Like, it's right there. Read the shirt.

My biggest problem with wearing the shirts is that I forget I've worn a shirt with something on it. Like, I went to Pride one year and it said free mom hugs. And this person was coming up against, and they were coming with their arms up like, why is this person coming to hug me? And they're pointing at my shirt and I'm going, oh yeah, that's right. I asked for this. I did. Yeah. So I do, I, I have some of those fun shirts on me. Like I, I've been, I love D&D and that kind of thing. So, you know, I've got a shirt that says, I'm not procrastinating. I'm, uh, I'm on a side quest. Right. And so people will point and talk about the shirt and that kind of thing. And I'll go, oh, oh, that's right. I'm wearing something with words on it.

I'm so happy, Angela, to see more and more people are letting their freak flag fly. They are, you know, being open about their differences. Most of my friends happen to be gay men. Now, part of that is because I live near Palm Springs and we have an abundance of gay men here, but also we understand each other immediately because they know what it feels like to be misunderstood. To be judged, to be criticized. They understand that being different is not a choice, and they tend to be very accepting of other people who are different. Even if you don't— I'm straight, but gay men adore me and I adore them.

So, you know, it's, it's all about finding the people that support you. And, and, you know, I don't, I, I don't like the word like-minded because I have perfectly— I mean, my husband and I don't agree on politics. My husband and I don't agree on religion, but we love each other and we're open and honest about our communication, right? We've been married over 31 years. So, like, you know, I don't think we have to be the same, but we have to be— I, I really like to have people around me who are willing to be wrong, and because I'm willing to be wrong, so I, I want other people who are also willing to see another side of the story, right? So once we find the people who work well with us, I mean, hold on to those people.

And you know what, let me, let me offer you this, Angela, because I use the term like-minded and like-brained, but I may be using it a little bit differently than most people. When I say someone is like I don't mean that we have the same cultural background, the same political preferences, that we like even the same kind of food or music or movies. For me, like-minded means basically living life in an intentional and mindful way, which is to say I'm open to life as it occurs. I am curious about everything and everyone around me, and I work very hard not to judge any of it. That's to me my version of like-mindedness. We, we don't have to— my husband's from Germany. The stuff he eats makes me nauseous. We eat completely different food at almost every meal, but we're like-minded in these other ways. So I, I, I think we're on the same page.

Yeah, yeah, we totally are. Yeah. And I like your definition. It's awesome. And I think that, you know, and this is again, I think another one of those neurodivergent things, because like a neurotypical person would be Like-minded. They think the same as I do, right? And so I think that we, we like to put— I like to say that our neurodivergent people, we like to have— we like to make our own boxes. We don't like to be in other people's boxes.

And we make up our own words.

Yeah, we all the time. And sounds for words sometimes.

Yeah. And sometimes if I, if I have to watch a movie for some reason, like when I was in college and I had to watch a movie to write a paper on it, sometimes I would turn the sound up off and make up my own dialogue for a few minutes just to make it more entertaining. When, when my kids were small, I would read them their children's books with a different voice for each of the characters. I made songs for like learning how to use the, the toilet and not, not using the diapers anymore, things like that. So, you know, it's funny, we talked earlier about not being creative. Being creative is, is having a different perspective About, about being human and being in the world and what we're here for and how we interact with others. And some people find it upsetting. Some people find it off-putting. Some people find it just really confusing, but that's okay because those are, those are not my people.

Yeah. It's what works for me, man. Let it go. You know? And I think that sometimes it's difficult because of that whole concept of rejection sensitivity, right? We do have that. It's a huge piece of what drives us to some degree in terms of that whole people pleasing piece. And I think sometimes that rejection sensitivity creeps up on me. I know, and on other people as well. We, we think you're sailing and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, that was really a rejection sensitivity moment, right?

I talk about rejection sensitivity all the time. I've done a number of podcast interviews on the topic, and I talk about it a lot with my clients because I think oftentimes because we've learned how to be self protective. We've learned how to— I refer to it as like full metal jacket or like wearing a suit of armor. I used to refer to some of my behaviors as being like Edward Scissorhands because it's like, okay, come here. Okay, I guess that's close enough. Like, I don't, I don't want to give you an opportunity to hurt me because even though I'm a baddie and I am a strong woman with some powerful traits, I'm surprisingly easy to injure. Because my rejection sensitivity is finely tuned, as it is for most people with ADHD, most creatives, people who are highly sensitive, people who are queer. Lots of people have rejection sensitivity, but guess what? I choose to be self-employed. You choose to be self-employed. We both work with people who choose to be self-employed, as many neurodivergents do. So it is one of the areas where we really have to Find ways to manage it, or inevitably what we do is play small and avoid putting ourselves in the places that would really allow us to thrive because it feels like there's too much riding on it and we don't want to hear no or be ghosted. And there's a lot of wonderful techniques for managing rejection sensitivity, but I'm not a fan of bypassing any emotions. I'm not a fan of saying, oh, don't feel that way. Like, just blah, blah. It's like, never dishonor somebody's feelings. Like, you're feeling what you're feeling. And of course, I'm also a former therapist, so, you know, it's kind of feelings are my currency. But once we've allowed ourselves to feel our feelings and like deconstruct them, now what do you want to do with this so that it doesn't sideline us and limit us?

Well, I think it's the same as, it's the same as your label, whether you're 2E or gifted or ADHD or autistic or whatever, dyslexia, whatever other label. I think being able to label that as, oh, that's rejection sensitivity, or, oh, that's overthinking, or that's overdelivering, or whatever the case may be, by giving yourself a label or description or, you know, a definition, so to speak, for that, it allows you to be able to see it differently. With a little, I'll say with practice, you can look at it with a little less emotion. And each time it can be a little less emotion. And then I think that that helps you to be able to turn that corner and go, okay, you know, that was not behavior that I want to continue with. Or, you know, that's, that's behavior that I'm, I'm over. Even though you're not over it, you're ready to make a change in your story, right? And so I think that's an important piece to, for me, I think people, because people will say all the time, especially, you know, you talk about the neurotypical people and the way they see us, right? It's like, Well, why do you need a label? And I think to me, that's why it's like, because so that we can actually look at it and understand it.

We can develop some objectivity around it and it gives us a common language to talk about it with other people. I think one of the things that's been most liberating for me, Angela, is, and I talk about this book way too often, but I've just learned so many powerful lessons from it. The Confidence Code by Shetty and Kaye. This book, these 2 female psychologists interviewed powerful women in multiple fields from, from law, government, CEOs of companies, politics, athletes, you name it. Like women at the very tip top of their game in a variety of fields. And every stinking one of them had issues with confidence. had fear of rejection, had imposter syndrome issues. And I'm like, my first thought after— because I've read the book several times and I recommend it virtually everyone— first time I read it, I thought, well, fuck me, you know, if all these women have these same issues, we're doomed. Like, why even try? Well, that was a moment I had that thought and it passed. And then I thought, wait a minute, if even these Women have these thoughts. If Barbara Streisand and Adele still have panic attacks before they would go on stage, if all these women have these very same natural responses to fear, uncertainty, doubt, rejection, then I can deal with this too. Like I'm no different. If if this is a universal phenomenon, then I have no reason to be a. And when we think that, then we can talk about it. And when we talk about it openly with others, we realize everybody feels it. It's not just me. And it's okay because it's a universal phenomenon, even among the people who pretend they don't feel it. Trust me, they do. And that has been absolutely liberating and life-changing for me.

That's beautiful. We'll make sure we'll, we'll make note of that book down the end there so you guys don't have to scribble right now. We'll put it in the show notes. But so when we're talking about like all the different things that impact us and, and cause problems, so to speak, or, you know, you talk about leading it to, you know, us being in hurt and being resentful. And, you know, of course we always talk about burnout. What's the flip? What's the thing if, if somebody's listening right now and they're like, I don't know, maybe, maybe I am 2E. I didn't even think about that. Along with my ADHD or other fantastic things that are happening with me. What's one thing that they can do or one way that they could look at things to maybe help them to combat or to offset some of the negative stuff that they might be going through?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say, um, most, I think knowledge is power and applied knowledge is powerful. So if you were identified as gifted in elementary school, and of course people listening to this podcast may live in places where there was no gifted program, so if you had been assessed, you would have been, but they didn't assess you, so you don't know. But if you were always in advanced placement classes and did really, really well, if you were able to grasp concepts really quickly, you could break complex topics down into simple ways and then take something that appears to be simple and show others how complex it actually is, you probably are gifted. And I think what's important about understanding that is that most people are not gifted across the board. And I think this is one of the reasons why many people who probably are gifted, especially women, actively deflect the label. I've had many women tell me, well, I was when I was a kid, but I'm not anymore. It's like, I'm sorry, but this is one of those things that doesn't go away. Well, actually, I'm not sorry. It doesn't go away, but you are doubting yourself for 2 reasons. Little girls who are told they're gifted almost 100% of the time internalize that to mean, I have to be good at everything. The bar has just been 10x'd for me. It does not feel like praise. It does not feel like, oh, now you get to wear a little gifted tiara to school so everyone knows how special you are. No, it feels like a fricking burden. And most gifted girls are just waiting. To make a mistake where they're going to tumble off their pedestal or everyone, they're going to be exposed as a fraud. And so most of them really, really downplay it. And I think if you were identified as gifted in elementary school, I promise you, my friend, you still are. And if you are, and some of the ADHD advice that you hear from other people, because you also come to know that you're ADHD, Or your ADHD coach might be having trouble giving you suggestions that are actually helpful to you. There, you want to avail yourself to information about giftedness, and you're probably going to have to double up a little bit, like have a little bit of a double major, because sadly there isn't too much good information about the intersection. Whenever I write about it, people from all over the world are reaching out to me because there's so little that's being written about it. So get your hands on some good information about giftedness across the lifespan. Understand that you might have to do more trial and error with ADHD tools because what works for the majority of people might not work for you. And most importantly, radical self-acceptance. If you are the kind of person who's been In several different careers, you need to change jobs every couple of years because you get bored easily. You need to constantly be meeting new people, trying new things, traveling to new places, you know, acquiring new hobbies, and you think that means you are a flake. It's because you have a very high need for stimulation. It is not a choice. You need to honor it or you will be more symptomatic with your ADHD and probably deple— You are on the path of continuous personal evolution. Embrace it and you will thrive. That's the best advice I could give someone twice exceptional.

That's beautiful. I don't know if anybody else took a really nice deep breath during any of that, but I did. Because when you hear something that resonates, that deep breath that you take in is really a moment when you go, oh cool. And your, you know, your psyche is really taking it in. So if you took a deep breath, Think about it.

Or if you're crying right now.

True. Yeah.

As you're listening to this, because many of my clients have said, I've never felt so seen in my entire life, and literally start crying and then apologizing. I'm like, no, no, no, this is, this is, we all need to be seen.

Yeah. And however you feel it, however it resonates with you, there's no, there's no apology required. Because all of us who are out here who have made connections to what makes us tick, we're excited for you to find the things that make you tick.

Yes.

No apologies. I love it. So tell everybody where they can hear more about you and what you have coming up and to share with them. And we'll add those things to the show notes as well.

Well, I love to tell people who first encounter me on a podcast interview like this one, if you like the sound of my voice and what I have to say with it, You probably want to follow the ADHD-ish podcast. You can find everything else related to me on my website at Diane Wieger Coaching. And I am currently mapping out several private podcasts that I'm going to be launching in 2025 because not everybody who wants to work with me can, and I love podcasting. So watch for those. If you get on my mail list, you'll be the first one to hear about it.

Beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today. I wish we could talk for like another hour because there's just so much more we could cover, but it was great having you here. And I know that anybody who has been listening has gotten tons from this conversation. Thank you so much.

It was my pleasure, Angela.

Awesome. I hope you have an amazing day.

You too. Bye now.

Hey, bye now. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoy the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.