When Learning is Trauma: Assistant Clinical Professor Alina Kislenko, Lois Letchford, & Lisa McCarty

Welcome back, Lisa. Thank you for being here and being part of this. And welcome, clinical professor, clinical assistant professor Elena Kalis. Now I've got your name, Kislenko. Elena is joining us from Canada where she is the assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences. And that's all I'm going to say because I want you to tell us more.

Sure. Okay, so yeah, I'm also a registered psychotherapist and I run a couple of counseling centers specializing in ADHD and autism. Called the ADHD and Spectrum Center, and also we specialize in giftedness. And we've been doing this for about maybe 12 or so years now. And I started it because I'm very passionate about ADHD, autism, giftedness. I was all those myself. I'm diagnosed with all that. And yeah, so we want to create like a safe place to process things with, and all of our practitioners we hire are only— they have ADHD or autism themselves. else too. So we really want to create an environment that was like, not traumatizing for a lot of neurodivergent people who had a lot of trauma, especially around education. Yeah, that's me.

But you, how did you get through school? Or how did you find school?

So awful. It was the worst thing ever. And I did a lot of it. And, uh, it got better over the years. Like, I found, like, undergrad to me was way harder than my graduate studies because it's just, you're, you're such a generalist learning everything versus then you kind of more specialize, more specialize. And that's often true for a lot of neurodivergent people. Grad school is seen as, like, more positive than undergrad or often high school because you're getting more specialized in our special interests. But I had so many issues and had developed so much educational trauma. So I'm so glad we're talking about this today. Just like, just having a lot of like, I have dyscalculia as well. It's a learning disability around numbers. And I have some writing learning disabilities and reading learning disabilities and just so many things that people were always just, oh, you're not trying hard enough. You know, you're so smart, you can figure it out. And it was just super abusive. And I came from a really high achieving household as well. So I was kind of like the black sheep. why can't, you know, she do school properly? So it was very, very stressful. And I would be doing like studying and doing my homework for like 25 hours, you know, like more than all my other students, like the other students per week. And it just, it would, it was just a constant grind. There was never a free moment. And eventually, I actually developed some systems for education that I ended up now, like I teach a lot at our centers and things like that, that helped me learn and helps a lot of other people. When you have like really smaller working memory, and we learn so much more like through association, through like, so like, like, oh, I'm really interested to learn in how, like, why, why can Rick and Morty space travel, you know? So like, let's learn about physics, let's learn about whatever. I can learn with a cool frame. But much of school teaches you more with like, well, let's teach you a bit about this like random thing in physics and this other random thing, and I can't connect it to my life. So I forget all of them. And by the time they give me something interesting, I don't understand all the little pieces that go in it. I've forgotten everything. So yeah, just the form of learning has always been really different than my brain and most neurodivergent brains learn. So yeah. How about you? How about you both?

Well, Alayna, do you mind if I ask, like, who helped you in school to get to the place where you are now? Anybody? Teacher-wise?

I was kind of just I mean, I actually didn't really connect to a lot of teachers. Often I was learning things in a very different way and they're like, no, you're doing it wrong. And I'm like, but this is the only way I can understand it. So I had trouble connecting to teachers. My parents would help me a bit after school, but that was also terrifying and often a big problem and caused a lot of— we're from Soviet, like, Ukraine, so our family is really into, like, yelling a lot and demanding things and saying, but your sister can do it. So it wasn't that— it wasn't that helpful. And my parents have really apologized since they learn more about the ADHD and autism, which we only figured out in my early 20s. So mostly I got tutors' help. I was able to get some tutoring. I was able to get a grant, the something called a BSWD grant in Ontario that's offered that gives you up to like $8,000 or so per year in like paying for like coaching slash therapy, paying for like technologies that can help. Like there was this awesome thing called the Livescribe Smartpen Oh yeah. Yeah, which I mean, they've had like now they're at like version 37,000, but like it's so helpful because like I would— so I would go to class, I would set it to record, and, uh, and then I would make like little notes with the pen because it— what it does is it records the audio of like what's happening in the lecture, but it ties it to everything you write with the pen. So you can later go, oh, when I wrote down this thing, what was the professor saying?

Great.

That's really helpful. And so, but I would also take a lot of breaks, so I'd make a little note like, going on break, and I'd go out, grab a muffin, do a bunch of like push-ups, just like things to wake myself up again in these classes. 'Cause like my brain just was like turning off. So then I'd come back and I'd keep learning and, uh, and, and then I'd be able to, okay, I'm back now. And then later I would actually re-listen though to the entire lecture. So the first time I would go just to take it in, I would take very few notes. just like little things from a smart pen and when I've left. Um, so I extra listened to that, but then I'd go home and I'd have to place every single thing into like a mind map of the course. I'd make flashcards. I'd have like, I'd re-listen to every lecture, um, to do that. Anyway, it was just, it was way more work than, um, all the other students.

But did you have to figure out on your own how to do that? Like, how did you get from the point of being traumatized basically with the work being so difficult to where you understood how you learned? You had to do that?

I think honestly, it's not like the best reason, but it's just my, my family all has like grad degrees and graduate degrees and stuff like that. And in Ukraine, like, it was just very much like you just get a bunch of education. And that's just how it works. So like, my sister's done like a PhD now, like this, that, you know, in my— it was, it was just, this is what you do. So I was like, okay, like to not get all the familial shame, shame, I guess I'll figure it out.

No.

So like, not a good motivation. And Part of what really helped is I've now done like 13 or so years of personal therapy, like, and I'm in therapy like this week, like every week, you know, to process like all the difficulties of, you know, pushing this hard and doing the things to like do the education, even though it was incredibly damaging a lot of the time.

Mm-hmm.

And now I really take that with me when I teach others, like in my classes and things. I'm just like, how do I support the learners and not traumatize them? Which is— that kind of goes against education sometimes. So yeah, yeah, it's been a really tough journey, a lot of trauma.

I bet.

Yeah, it sounds like, you know, your trauma began very early on and it continued at home.

Yeah, definitely. Like, yeah. And actually, this is a cool time to bring up something called big T and small t trauma, which, uh, me and Lisa were talking a bit about before I know, Lisa, do you want to talk a bit about that?

Well, yeah, we were talking a little bit beforehand, and as I mentioned, I work as a mental health nurse now, and I worked in the ER prior to that. And what I see in the mental health field is that a lot of people will put a lot of emphasis on what we would consider the big T traumas, so that when you're working with a client and you ask the client, Have you had trauma? They'll say, why, yes, I have. And then the client thinks of the, the big thing, like the thing that they think we want to hear. Like, they'll think, oh, well, somebody may have had to die, or we were homeless, or something big. And they never seem to recognize this. I hate to say small because I don't think these traumas are small. But they're continuous. Let's call them In the case of kids learning in school, if they're neurodivergent, continuous failures every day.

Yeah.

And that really does a number on their self-esteem, causes a lot of anxiety and depression. And then here's where we see a lot of the mental health problems. But people don't necessarily link that with trauma. They think trauma is an accident or someone died or, or whatever. And I don't know if it's a matter of people are also feeling a little bit embarrassed Maybe by their schooling, or they just simply don't link it. I'm not sure what, what the— why they don't see that as traumatizing. But when you ask people who have come through a system, a school system that didn't get them, it has, it has been traumatizing, as it turns out.

Oh my gosh, yes, so much. And also, a lot of times we process our trauma with our adult brain. So we like, we think about it. So we go, oh, these Like, let's say these kids didn't want to play with me. Well, that's not a big deal. People as an adult, people don't want to hang out with me all the time. I'm fine.

Mm-hmm.

But as a kid, when you have this tiny world, you can't control where you live, you can't control what school you go to, you can't control who you're gonna see for like 8 hours a day or whatever. Um, and then things go badly there, especially if you're in a stage of learning like, oh, who am I when making friends? Do people tend to like me or not? You know, am I an extrovert or an introvert? Do I spend— you know, like when you're kind of just understanding, uh, and going through a lot of growth, As a kid, you're very vulnerable. So, um, something— so small trauma— uh, sorry, sorry, not small trauma, small t traumas, which are if not like the same but worse than big T traumas, than the big obvious stuff, because you, you have like nothing to claim. Um, but anyway, but if you're having a small t trauma, like, um, uh, what you call it, say, yeah, you tried, you studied really hard for a test, and the next day the teacher goes, oh well, from your results, I can obviously see you didn't study again. You're like, oh, I just studied. It's very easy for that to become a trauma. Like, no matter what I do, it's never good enough, so just don't even try. And that's a thing adults take into their lives. Yeah.

I like how you said obvious. Maybe that's how we have to say it— obvious trauma versus not so obvious trauma. Because it's not bigger or smaller. Um, yeah, but I like how you said that, and that's true. And I also like how you said about People thinking from their adult brain. I didn't consider that. That's a great point.

Yeah. And we have to do it like all the time with clients. The client will be like, oh, this happened when I was younger, you know, it was no big deal. And they've made some— they'll make a joke and they're like, anyway, and they're like, anyway, but let's go back to this problem I'm having in my relationship. Like, let's talk about the now.

Yes.

And what I've learned is that we could talk about the now all day long, but the patterns that they created, like, why are they in this abusive relationship? Or why are they in this job that hates them or that they're not good at? Like, That you could talk about that till you're blue in the face and they'll come up with all sorts of adult explanations. Oh, I guess I'm here because I love the money and, you know, I'm afraid to be alone.

Yeah.

But then when you go into the childhood component, really their subconscious of like, but what are the lessons you learned? Where did you learn them when you were a kid that has kept you here? Until we talk about that and go like, what did it mean to you back then? What did you lose? Let's feel those feelings. Let's let them out. Then all of a sudden the person's going like, oh, you know what? I left that relationship that was bad for me and actually I'm applying for new jobs. And that's the thing that creates the change. It's not like, let's talk about how much you hate your job. Often people just get stuck in like the comfort of the catharsis of, oh, my life sucks. And then I talk about how much my life sucks. And I feel like I'm doing something and I feel better. But I don't actually plan to change anything. And I keep doing these bad cycles.

Yeah, that's brilliant. And then I also find that clients that are stuck with a lot of anxiety, and most of them are, they want to medicate that.

Right.

And I think that's another big problem. Again, this is just what I see. I'm sure you see some similar things.

But yeah, I mean, well, I'd say there's a lot of misuse of medication, I think, in psychiatry, in just the medical world. Like, for example, a lot of autistics, they'll get anxiety, so they give them anti-anxiety meds, or anti-depression meds or whatever for depression. But a lot of the research shows that for autistics, That stuff's often not that effective because the, like, you need to actually treat and understand the autism, which does not take pills much of the time. It's much more of a, oh, like, I'm left-handed, but I've been using everything right-handed. How do I find all my left-handed tools? Because it's like a totally different way to have a brain. Like, I have to learn through my special interests. Like, other people can learn just nat— like random things. I have to learn, uh, through like tea. I love everything about tea. You know, I'll learn. high-level quantum, like, mechanics through tea, if you could do that somehow. And, and, and also just the environment often, let's say, for an autistic, if it's the wrong environment, like, that's where people are, like, judgy to them, where, like, even the temperature's too cold or hot. They have— they're forced to eat things that are really bad for them, like, like mouthfeel-wise and sensory issues, you know, they have to wear clothing they can't— like heels, and they can't really do You know, if that's, if that's the type of autism they have, um, they're gonna fall apart. And the ways that autistics or ADDers or gifted people fall apart is often they develop high levels of anxiety, OCD, um, they develop dissociation, they develop, um, PTSD, all sorts of things that we try to treat the symptom.

Mm-hmm.

But if there is neurodivergence at the core, research has found until you're really treating and understanding the neurodivergence, there's just no point in doing most other things. Even with addictions, like you try to treat addictions when it's ADHD or autism, right? The addiction just moves to something else. Yeah. And it's true for a lot of people who aren't neurodivergent as well, where we're— look, we're too quick to jump to, oh, what medication do we give you? But I think the pandemic has shown us something really important. Because in the pandemic, so many people who've never experienced mental health issues experienced huge problematic ones, right? And finally, the world was like, okay, maybe all this mental health stuff, maybe the environment, like the pandemic is not a great environment for most people to thrive. You know, most people now, if you're scared all the time, you feel like no matter what, like the rules are changing all the time. You know, you don't know how to like what the next steps are. You can't imagine your future. And all of a sudden everyone starts to fall apart. Right? Meds aren't going to fix that.

Yeah.

And I think they're helpful for some people in some circumstances, but never just alone.

Exactly.

That's what I found. It always requires some, something else, counseling or whatever it is, getting to the root cause or the core of why am I feeling anxious. And yeah, I don't know, I could talk about that all day.

But, but you just, you said something to me that was really fascinating. You know, you said that we've got cycles of behavior that are built up from when we are children. And that I don't think has, is not is not something we talk about much.

I wish we talked about it more, definitely. Because like, people think we're walking around as these like adults everywhere, but we're really in a lot of ways these like unformed children, because like psychology is only like 100 years old, it's still really new. And most of society was built without an understanding that the inside, our emotions really matter. So most of society was built as if we're robots, you know? And so you're like, okay, is this child oiled and fed and whatever the heck you need to do? Okay, then they'll be fine. And now we're learning that like, oh gosh, no, they have to be like exposed to things that like, for like for their temperament. So if it's a quiet child, like a baby that's like overstimulated, you need to be really careful to not overstimulate them, you know, or if it's, or if a child is feeling an emotion, you need to not suppress that because that will teach them their entire lives. they can't feel that emotion properly anymore. And that like, every time they feel sad, they actually need to eat candy, or every time they feel sad, they need to look like everything's fine and go be by themselves instead of actually like tell people something's wrong, someone help me, which is kind of what sad is for. Sad is like made to make you look kind of pitiful and make you kind of weak and useless so that other people see that, okay, they need to show you that they support you, and then you feel like in community, you know.

Mm-hmm.

So when you're sad, part of it, like we get like, it's hard to do things, we just like shut down a bit. But if we're healthily processing sad, you go to others. I'm sad. I need community support now because humans are social creatures. Right? But we're taught so many wrong things about our emotions that, oh, if you're sad, go hide it somewhere. Nobody likes that. Go put that away. Go distract yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

We have these broken adults walking around that, you know, it makes us much more prone to getting addicted to everything, to not listening to other people to also traumatizing our own kids because we're— and our own friends that are around us and our partners when they're sad now we're like, oh, put that back in, nobody cares.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. We were talking to Hillary Jacobs Hendel. Did I say her name right?

Yes.

And she was talking about something similar with the change triangle, she calls it, with the core emotions at the bottom. And we don't really get to those. And I did that as a mother. I was reading part of her book and it had us do an exercise with how comfortable were we with certain emotions. So it said anger, for example, how comfortable are you with anger? And I'm not comfortable when other people are angry. So as a mom, I would always be trying to shut it down or fix it. You know, I'm a nurse too, I like to fix things. So I pretty much taught my kids that it's really not okay, I'm not a safe person to express anger with. Even though it's a necessary emotion, you know, evolutionarily, because it means there's a problem. And I think it's fantastic that you have all the people on your staff that you work with who also understand this.

Yeah, that's been so big because— so neurodivergent people process emotions way, way, way bigger than most. So like in the— we have an overdeveloped amygdala most of the time. So even our amygdala that processes like stress response, and a lot of other emotions, it's really reactive. And this is amazing. It's a double-edged sword, like everything though. So it's like, if we love something, we're like the best marketers for it, we're the best, we wanna tell everybody, well, we're gonna learn everything about it, and we have all the energy for it. You know, we can become experts in something really fast. If we are upset, like if we hate something or we're upset or something's wrong, we're going to be the biggest inconvenience, the biggest nightmare. We can't function whatsoever beyond that emotion set. But it's really cool though, because with, for example, human rights, like a lot of people will go, oh, somebody else's human rights are being violated. A lot of people go, oh good, it's not me. And their emotions aren't like, they're like, oh, I'm upset for that other person, but I don't have to do anything about it. But often a lot of neurodivergent people will be like, watching them get abused is, is so alarming that like, I can't keep sitting here in my cushy job and doing nothing. Like, they're much more likely to, to stand up for others, even when they'll lose something, you know, because our emotions are just so big, and they don't let us just sit around and do nothing.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, so it's, it's big that our therapists are all neurodivergent, because then it really changes a lot of the mental health message, which is often like, oh, how can you be less and smaller? How can you be less weird and mask more and fit in, which is a lot of like neurotypical counseling for neurodivergent people. Like, so, you know, normies or whatnot, you know, how they approach neurodivergence is like, okay, how can you be more normal? But in our center, it's much more like, oh, cool. Let's specifically— let's really fully stretch out and harness and figure out what— who are you? What are you? What are you when you're the biggest you can be? And how can we make your environment accommodate that? And how can we write letters to support And how can we like get you friends around that believe in that and want you to be your biggest self?

It's like a growth mindset.

Exactly.

Yeah, I think that's excellent. Wow.

That is something I really needed in my own growth because I also for a lot of years was taught like, okay, be quiet, like don't bother anyone, don't speak up. I had a lot of trouble sharing my anger because that wasn't really invited in the household properly. And so I was like, anytime somebody would do something cruel to me, I'd go, oh no, And I'd go away, but then it took a lot of years to be like, wait, I know what's right. I've researched this. Like, this person is actually in the wrong, or they're violating my own or other people's rights. Like, you know, this is a good time to get bigger and get angrier. I've had to do so much to expand myself back from the tiny box like that, that the world tried to shove me in.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's excellent. Um, I think a lot of kids, you know, they, they feel that there's something wrong with them And they're always measuring them and society's saying to everybody, you're not good enough. And then we wonder why these people are having anxiety and depression. Why do we wonder? What are we doing to people?

We have a system that, you know, that tests and says, these are your strengths, these are your weaknesses, these are the things you can't do. You know, we're emphasizing you cannot do, and everybody knows what you cannot do.

And there's the what can you do.

Yeah, and what, you know, what I'm thinking about young children is their lack of language skills. I mean, they're struggling with language anyway. They're still learning it. But emotions, as you said, what did you say about emotions? That emotions really matter.

They're so important. Actually, and there's a book called Thinking Fast and Slow.

Yes.

I hope that's the actual name. Yeah. Yes, it is. An author I should— I one day want to remember his name.

I've forgotten too. Yeah, I know it.

Anyways, look it up. But, uh, Thinking Fast and— or Thinking—

anyway, Thinking Fast and Slow.

Yeah, there we go. I'm bad at finding the words when I need them. Anyway, um, but, uh, he talks about how, um, we're as a society, we're so into like logic. We try to be like, okay, well, I'm only going to do something if it logically makes sense. And, you know, you wait for that logic to come and whatever. But then there's— and that's like called slow thinking, right? And then you've got fast thinking, which is actually your emotions, because your emotions come from your subconscious, which is actually a way bigger supercomputer than your conscious mind. Because you might go to a restaurant, remember like what you talked about a little bit, maybe the shirt that person was wearing, maybe that the waitress had a cool tattoo. Your subconscious will remember like the amount of floor panels on the floor, what like everyone around you was talking about, about from the little tidbits of conversation you caught. You remember exactly what you were wearing, they were wearing, what the waiter was wearing, that the waiter was like, had a cold, and that they just, you know, were, were running back and forth to, you know, sneeze over there. Like, you remember everything. And so what— how that subconscious supercomputer talks to you is by sending emotions. Emotions are just data, data packets from your subconscious to your conscious mind that are saying, hey, FYI, pay attention to this or that for your either thriving or survival or whatever, like to make sure that, you know, you're getting the signals. So as a society that we've labeled that as bad is ridiculous because it's the biggest thing that preemptively gives you messages like, like, and you might not consciously be aware why, like, oh, I feel sad today. I have no idea why. There's no reason. But then eventually that slow thought will come with the logic and be like, oh, actually I realize now, you know, I've like, my boss is actually mean to me quite regularly, but I didn't I just— everyone's always mean to me, so I kind of ignored it, but maybe I'm at my limit now. You know, or, or even deeper, emotions tell you things like, you know, don't move to that country. And you might think consciously, why not?

Why?

It's a great country. I love it. I can do surfing there. But then your subconscious is actually picking up things like, you know, there's actually due to have like an earthquake soon, and they, you know, they have a lot of trouble, like the industry for teaching is about to dry up, so you're actually likely to have trouble in that country, and this and that. And bunch of stuff your conscious mind has no idea knows. And so your subconscious talks to that conscious mind in symbolism through, like, through your emotions and through your dreams and through other things where you're like, oh, I have this strong intuition. And that's your subconscious trying to be like, stop doing stupid crap, you know, like, listen to me for survival. And as a society, we've been like, oh, that's useless, we don't— let's ignore it. And then we all do awful things things we know are horrible and just try to push that away.

Do you mostly work with adults or kids or both?

Both. Yeah, we do adults, kids, couples counseling, like friendship counseling, like everything under the sun. Eventually, over time, we built all the services because we were like, okay, so we work with ADHD and autism. But like, what are all the concerns of our clients? And What do they need? And so we now have like a whole network of like naturopathic doctors and psychologists and coaches and therapists and all the things. Yeah, we need that here.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just, you know, you've said so much. My mind's blowing because, you know, this conscious to the subconscious. And I'm thinking about my children when they went to school and they didn't have the language that they don't. You don't have the language to say anything. That's one. And the emotions are there, the emotions, you fright— you freeze.

Yeah.

What are the implications of that?

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So a lot of time, again, especially with neurodivergent kids, but all kids, I mean, how much language do we have, you know, just do kids have to explain what they're needing, but especially neurodivergent kids, they've been taught from a young age that anytime they need something, they're like, someone's like, no, you don't really need that, that's not that important. But for us, actually, a lot of what look like wants are needs, because we actually— a lot of us don't have enough, uh, something called dopamine. Uh, that's one of the neurochemicals we—

Yeah.

Uh, it's kind of dysregulated. So either we have way too much and we're hyperfocused, or we have way too little and we're like bored, and it makes us like legitimately stupider for a while, and we like can't grasp things. So often a kid will ask, they're like, hey, I need to watch TV, or can I read a book, or can I go play video games? And the and be like, what? No. But if that's the way that they build dopamine, or if they're like, while they hang out with their friends or watch a comedy thing or play with the dog, and you're thinking, oh, that's a want, like that's what you get after you've worked hard, but not what you get beforehand, like that's your dessert kind of thing. But we often need our dessert first. So anyway, a lot of the time that's going to be seen as wants by people. So the kids, even if they know what they want, they, they're kind of systematically erased from their mind to like not really know anymore. And that's why you get a lot of neurodivergent kids, especially autistic kids, who say, I don't know, a lot. You might be like, hey, what's wrong? I don't know. Yeah. Should we do something about it? Seems like there's a problem. I don't know. No, just no, you know, and, and often they're locked up, they're overwhelmed. If you put them on the spot, because they've learned that if they actually share what's up, you're going to tell them they're wrong and selfish and annoying and in the way and taking too long. And so they just learned to be like, okay, I'll be whatever you want, you know. And then you get ADHD kids, they start to lie a lot. So you get a lot of like lying of like, I'll just tell you what you want, what you want. I'll create a whole new world for you adults to just like get off my back. And autistics are super honest. So they just, they don't want to lie as often. So the autistic kids naturally will be more like, I don't know, I don't know, because they're not— they're just, they just want you to go away. And they found stonewalling is the strategy for So yeah.

Yeah. Gosh.

I taught a student who just said to me, I don't know. No, I didn't teach her. I tried to. I tried to. And when you're on Zoom, you have limited options.

Yes. Very, very true. That would be hard for a teacher, you know, like, how do I help you?

Yeah. And the answer is, I don't know. I don't know.

Well, and I think Alina has a point because a lot of these students have been through this and it's almost like a learned helplessness also. Or like you said, you know, I've tried and I haven't gotten help. And I think we had interviewed my son a few weeks ago and he said something similar, like, I had been at school with people whose job it was to teach me try to teach me and it still hadn't worked, why would he expect anybody else to be able to do any different?

Exactly. Like, it takes actually huge resources to build hope. Like, we think, like, to get someone, hey, like, try this, this is gonna work this time. Yeah, like, people can only take so long that we take them to the top of, like, a building and then push them off, and then they fall in the crush of that first, like, broken hopes. You know, and they go and they hope, oh, maybe this person will understand me, and they crush, you know, maybe, you know. And, and so that then you get a lot of, uh, people that as kids or adults start to go, oh, there's no point in trying. Like, no, I don't believe you. Nothing's really gonna get better. You know, there's—

Yeah.

And, and that's really draining for the parents as well. And I mean, for the person to have themselves, for the parent, for the partner, for the teacher of those people, but they've first been drained of life by society, and now they become these drainers of life from everyone around them because they can't thrive anymore. They can't, you know, think of good things, and society broke that for them, you know, and it's society's job to fix it.

Yeah, so my son mentioned that too. At some one point, he felt hopeless. So how do you, Alina, how do you take somebody who's hopeless and bring them back?

Okay, so I mean, it's therapeutic. Like, it's not so much like, do this with everyone, this will go great. But like, what we do at our centers, because it's like, actually, like, rebuilding someone's hope is a really complex and vulnerable process. Because while you try to rebuild it, you could actually make it way worse.

Yeah.

Like, where now they extra are going to be resistant to anyone trying to bring hope into their lives. So you gotta be really careful. But one of the things we do is like, we don't talk— like, we know everyone's already tried to get them, you can just exercise, why don't you just exercise? Why don't you just go outside for a walk? You know, why don't you— we know everyone's bothered them in their entire life, just trying to poke them into actions. So what we do instead is we tackle the subconscious. So we actually, we do something at the counseling center, we developed a model called the PIE model. It's called— it's for parts inclusion. So the parts inclusion model. And it's something we've learned that like, your conscious mind, especially if you've been abused a lot of your life, often has huge amounts of defense mechanisms everywhere.

Yeah.

don't solve the problem from the conscious mind. Go in through the subconscious and the symbolism, like explore what's there. And so we use— it's like parts, parts elements have been part of psychology for a long time, like in Gestalt therapy, more modern now in internal family systems. So we created our own version over like the last 5, 10 years that we've been using really effectively as we talk about like all these avatars that live in your subconscious. So it's a lot like the movie Inside Out, which actually is based on really good psychological Research, by Dr. Paul Ekman. And I really recommend to watch it if you haven't, the Pixar movie, I believe it's Pixar.

Yeah.

So, so we go in and we like, we try to get them to wake up those emotions by understanding like, what are the parts that live inside of you? So for example, here's some of my parts. So we make it like, really, it's really actually really fun to do. So like, inside of me, I have one called Sprout. She's like a little fairy that lives in like a teapot in the garden. And she holds the emotions, because usually most parts hold a couple emotions, because again, it's your subconscious. We're just giving a mouth to like that subconscious supercomputer. So this part of my subconscious is really into like my— when I get really happy or excited, and also when I get like really sad. It's very impulsive emotions is this part, because she's like 4 years old. And, and she loves being outside, and she loves like telling people very honestly what's on her mind, not, not having any secrets. And she loves like running around and swimming and stuff. And so, so I had to really reconnect to her. But then I also had another part I found called Dark Alina. So Dark Alina is my part that's very about like boundaries and, and about telling people like needs and being preventative around things like that, and having like good space with other humans and, and like kind behavior. And so she's kind of the alarm system. If someone starts being mean to me, she starts being like saying things and thinking things, essentially sending it to me via like— like it's when your subconscious communicates with you. So for example, mine, like the different parts actually use different ways to communicate. So Sprout might quickly kind of show me visuals versus Dark Alina really quickly puts like— she like speaks in swear words and I just get really sweary. And I can tell like, okay, like Dark Alina is kind of that part of my mind. And then I have another part that's like my resilience and bravery. And that part's always like, yeah, Yeah, we need to do this. And it's like, they're like one of those '90s superheroes raising their arm with the background music. Anyway, yeah, so it's like we help them get to know their parts, like their avatars in a game. Because actually, very often with ADHD or autism, when you— when we play a lot of games, like board games, video games, we love role-playing games. And often we will— the characters we play in these different games are parts of our subconscious. Like we play out being way braver than we are, because we actually have a part of ourselves that's trying to communicate with us and wants that expression. You know, another part of us might be, you know, the, the one that— another avatar might be someone who goes through a lot of growth and like change and stuff like that. And that part's like the more introspective part, we might play that role. I know I've said a lot, but this is— we've had a lot of success with this as a trauma modality. And it's currently being researched at a couple different universities. And it's like, it's the way to rebuild hope, like the best thing we found to do. Yeah.

It's, it's taking, you know, what they do normally, isn't it? But using some psychology and getting them to do some thinking at a deeper, a deeper level without, without feeling vulnerable.

Exactly. It's like a way of processing without first needing to be vulnerable because you can talk about Yes. You know, like, so it's just a part of you. And, and that's how we actually exist. Like, much of the time we're actually feeling like 5 emotions at one time. You know, we're actually often feel like we're not just like upset, we're like usually excited, sad, disappointed. So it's like, as you can hear multiple voices at the same time in your head, and they can almost— when you get— as you get healthier, they all work together like on a panel of experts, then you can start Okay, one part of me wants this, the other part of me wants something different. And once you understand all their needs, they're less likely to sabotage each other in the process.

We do have a question from Chris Lashwa who says, what does society need to learn about students that are struggling?

Oh, well, let's see, everything, but everything.

Yep.

Let's start with maybe understanding understanding what is a struggling student. So if a student is teaching— I'm sorry, cheating a lot, they're a struggling student. If a student is acting out in class, they're a struggling student. You know, if a student is, like, always alone and doesn't want to join any groups, they're a struggling student. And often we'll— we don't see these as struggling students. We see these as failures of different kinds, liars. We see these as like kids that won't fit in, and, and they're struggling students, you know, it's not just in their grades. So I think one big thing we need to, like, reframe a lot of it from like, oh, this kid is being rebellious, or going against things, or cheating, or, you know, being bad, and more change it to, okay, this kid is using very creative ways to achieve their goals, because we are not helping them adequately do that. We're not stimulating them, we're not giving them the right options. I also think there needs to be so much more therapy, therapy opportunities in school. That was actually something when I was in grade 6 or 7, I remember— I mean, I feel like I made this up in a way, but her name was Penny Applebottom in my memory. And she, she came to the school to like kind of— and I, we had like, I had like one therapy session, maybe 2 with her. And just having an adult listen to me and not like accuse me of things And just like really be curious about my world, that was actually quite revolutionary. And so just like more therapy, more emotions education, more emotional intelligence teaching, more healthy communication, and also healthy ways to challenge your teachers that isn't authoritarian. So being like, hey, you know, if you have trouble with some of the coursework, or you're going, hey, this isn't updated, like there's new history, or or there is something else, this, this might not be right. Having a way to communicate with teachers where that's not disrespectful, where you can get like, where that discourse is invited, and you'll already be doing so much better with neurodivergent kids, at least. Yeah.

Chris is back again, and he said, Chris Chase, what are some devices or techniques that can be used to help students?

Uh, let's see. Okay, so Livescribe Smartpen, that's great. And, um, it costs like somewhere like $200-ish, though you probably get them used. And that's the thing I talked about earlier in the interview, or this session. It was like you write with a pen and it takes in the audio recording of everything, but it's not just the same as an audio recorder because you can click back what you wrote and it'll play what the professor or teacher was saying at that time. And there's a version for the computer that's free of that, which is OneNote. OneNote has a similar thing in the audio recording function where you can— it'll audio record what's happening around you, and then, uh, and as you type, it'll connect it so you can later go, oh, when I was typing this, what did the professor say or the teacher say? And it'll do that, it'll play it back. So that's super helpful because then you miss nothing. So that's great. And I do recommend— and I know this is time-consuming— but I really recommend, uh, going through the class almost like twice for kids. Like, first just to listen to to it, like, while semi-distracted, just taking the big ideas. And then again, now the, okay, now we're, we're, how are these ideas related? Like, put them in a chart or let's make flashcards. Let's like understand them.

Yeah.

So those are some things, but mostly really just tying things to special interests. Um, and, and being very strengths-based is very important. So for example, uh, nowadays in school, like, it used to be more, let's take what you're crappy at and make okay, and everything you're really great at, let's just let it kind of die on the vine and not get nurtured because you're fine at that, you know. And so you spend all your time focusing on what you suck at, which deteriorates self-esteem and takes away all your energy to push forward and what could you do here. So I'm really into outsourcing, like the most— like wait until the kids actually want to learn that thing. In the meantime, like focus on what they can do really well. Like say they're great orators, like good at talking, So get them to do a lot through talking instead of writing. And then at some point, life will demand that, hey, oh, all my kids are writing this stuff, or my— all my friends are writing this stuff. Now I'm curious about how to do that. Or like, oh, I'm now ready to socialize, or now I'm ready to learn math. When they feel a need, then it's like, good, let's teach them. Because once they have a need themselves, or an interest, or we've brought their special interest, so they're actually like, oh, how does it work? Now you're going to teach them. Like that. more likely to go well and not be traumatic. Unfortunately, the school system is not like that yet, but I think with a lot of virtual reality education— and in fact, like, the government of South Africa and also the governments of Fiji and some other governments are looking into using VR as their future of education because it costs so much less to create. They don't have the teaching facilities, the buildings, the new books.

Sure.

All they now need to have is, like, a cheap, like, virtual reality sets are getting really cheap now. So you just have to give everyone these sets and then you have every type of classroom imaginable that you can go at your own pace. I'm a big VR person. I love that. It's like, especially in the pandemic, I got really into it. Yeah.

That's amazing.

It's—

anyway, don't— let's get on. Xena has said, I've heard— would you still say a student is struggling if their grades are generally fine? Maybe they're hyper-concerned with them being stellar, but they don't want to join groups.

So sorry, the question is?

Would you still say a student is struggling?

So their grades are good, but they don't want to join groups?

Yeah, but they want their results to be stellar, not okay, but they don't want to join groups.

I think, I think that that's a good question. Um, I would say that every family has their own goals for their kids. So like, some families will be like, oh, they're doing well in school and they have no social needs for them, you know, or expectations. Um, but some families like need to be really well-rounded. It depends on their goals, also the kids' goals. Let's say, do they want to go to med school? If so, they need to be doing a bunch of extracurriculars, not other things or whatever. If they want to be a plumber, maybe they don't need to be doing those things, right? So it's figuring that out. And also, the biggest question is, is the child struggling? Do they feel like something is wrong? That's really important. So figuring that out. So I would say it really depends on a lot of factors in that situation.

That's good, because she said that she's loved the talk overall about neurodiversity and being a child. And Chris Latchford said, you mentioned role-playing games earlier. Do you see gaming as helpful for people with dyslexia to take a break from the real world?

I see like gaming can be equally amazing and evil all at the same time. It's actually the same for TV for me. So I find TV so stimulating, it almost made me drop out of my undergrad. I was a bit— I was kind of like depressed, a bit suicidal, and I just want to like leave my life. And so then I would watch TV for like 20 hours straight every day, and that's how I dealt with things. But now as an adult, having gone to a lot of trauma therapy, healing a lot of stuff for me, I use TV as a huge motivator that like if I have to go do hard work, I go, okay, 15 minutes of TV, 5 minutes of hard work, 15 minutes of TV, 5 minutes of hard work. It's boosting my dopamine until I'm eventually like, okay, my my work is interesting now and I'm off. So I think it's the same with video games. Like, it's an amazing source of socialization, like meeting so many new friends. A lot of times, you know, they play these games because they're good at it.

Yeah.

They're getting mastery, you know. Um, it's very good for boosting dopamine, um, and for like— and, and they do learn like amazing skills, like hand-eye coordination can be grown and all sorts of stuff. Um, and if you're learning it, if you're using it for learning, amazing, right? Say it's like, okay, we play this game, but to get to every part, you have to do math a little bit. They'll get better at math, you know, if they love it. So it can be amazing. But also, it's a place where neurodivergent kids especially go when they're feeling really disconnected from society. They don't have friends, they don't have connections, they hate everyone at school, they hate their, their parents don't get them. Oh, finally, the video games get them, you know, and so then they'll spend all their energy there. So the solution isn't like cut off the video game, it's more figuring out What are they using the video game for? And are they using it more addictively, where they're doing it in a way that is causing them problems that they themselves are like, okay, this is like, it's, they're getting in the way of their own goals. And they're like not able to fulfill their responsibilities, you know, great. Like, then it's like, okay, how do we use this properly for you and not addictively? And how do we, how do we also roll good things into it? Like some parents want family time. And they think, oh, how do I get my kid to do these things and have dinner with us. And maybe the important question is, how can you go play Minecraft with your kid, create a family server or whatever, and go play Minecraft? Now you have family time and they're having a good association with you and they get to be gaming. And that's amazing, you know? So it's like figuring out how you can connect the two and don't be quick to demonize video games.

Yeah.

That's a hugely separating thing. Like, that's another thing. And my family hates my video games. They so don't get me.

No, I do. A lot of dyslexic learners, for example, and I know a lot about dyslexia because I have those types of learners, they're very— they're highly visually, spatially, their talent is in those areas. And so, you know, this Minecraft, for example, I can't do it. I can't make sense out of what I'm seeing.

And they're like, look at this, and I can do this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's very visual. And I think— I think school tends not to be very visually oriented. I just today, we went to help— my older son is moving into a cottage and there's some plumbing work that needed to be done and I watched my husband and my other dyslexic son just like problem solve this and—

Boom.

And I'm looking at this mess Pipes. It looks like a big mess to me. And they're like, they're just the way they can do things and visualize stuff is you can't match that. But they don't understand that that's a talent sometimes. They're always looking at what, what they did, where their deficit was coming from school. And I think getting back to the trauma discussion, I think that's where, why we see that, because they keep seeing what they're not good at, where their deficit is, as opposed to— opposed to what are they great at?

Yeah.

You know?

Yes. And, and, and, and it's so good that you brought up with dyslexia that there's, yeah, there's that physical that they just do so well with the visuals. And very commonly, especially with ADHDers, they tend to be a lot more physical. Like, um, a lot of our athletes are ADHD and dyslexic and stuff. Not everyone. Um, but, uh, definitely that's a big thing that, and the school system isn't really—

I'm gonna get to that question.

there can be a lot of loss, especially if the kid isn't a team player. Then it's hard to figure out how do we stimulate them. And yeah, so I'd say work with video games.

Yeah.

And work with— and find— also find in-person video games. Like, ask really important questions like, hey, what are you getting out of this video game? You know, what do you love the most about it? And is there something we could do in real life that has elements of that? Or like, Are you curious about learning this or that?

And don't we also use sports and video games as like either punishment, we take it away, if you can't do this then we're going to take that away, if you don't get an A on this test or if you don't do your homework or if the school calls one more time I'm going to, you know, take this away, or the schools themselves will say you have to have a certain grade point average to play a sport and you're taking away their talent. I don't know, I could go on about that but I don't want to get too No, I totally agree with you.

And I think if you have a kid that's really into video games, I think that's a cue that if you can access it, because I know it is hard to access, it's expensive and difficult sometimes, but get some family therapy. Because likely what's happening is the kid is just— they don't trust you, they don't feel like they— like the world gets them, and so then they're going further and further further and having other people have influence over them. And because video games can often have very aggressive environments, you know, be quite unkind sometimes, like, the more that they're looking there for their influence, like, the more they might grow into, like, people that are more into, like, conspiracy theories or various things like that, because that's kind of just what's on the internet. And, like, get more into anger and/or into hating things. That's just, again, not good. Really, these are very transmissible memes on the internet, these kinds of things. But if there's a connection with the parent and their life and their peers, then they're taking that influence more from their parents and life and peers than the video games. So, so if you're really getting a huge exposure to that, those video games, family therapy, not just like pulling them away, but literally like figuring out what made life suck for you. How do we fix it now?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's, that's great.

Pardon? Yes, I've got one question for us and we've got to watch our time now because we've got a time limit through Google. And he says, what do you think of 2 dyslexic people founding a game design company to show that because we're dyslexic, we can change and influence the gaming industry? What do you think about that? Amazing.

Amazing. Great. Well, often ADDers and autistics and learning people with with learning disabilities and dyslexia, uh, do amazing in entrepreneur roles, especially if they have some structure and good business partners. Like, great, because we don't fit that well into hierarchies or like having bosses. So amazing that you did that. And the video game industry, there's so much money in it right now. There's— it's like, it's a huge empire of billions of dollars a year. So there's a lot of work there. And I think That's important for parents to realize as well. This is their training for work a lot of the time, playing video games.

Elena, Elena, where can we find you? What are your final words and where can we find you?

Great. Well, we are the ADHD and Spectrum Center, and you can find us at adhdinterrupted.com. That's adhdinterrupted.com, because that's what I originally named it, like, 12 years ago. And then we also— I then realized I had autism. And now we do all the things, but I haven't changed my website at all. Think about it. That's us.

Fantastic. Lisa, where can we find you?

Oh, Facebook and YouTube on Monday afternoon. And I guess LinkedIn.

Well, thank you. You know, this has been a phenomenal discussion. And I'm going to make some notes from it and put them up on my, on my blog. Because I think a number of things you've said are so important for us as parents to reflect on our children, reflect on our backgrounds, and the gap between conscious and subconscious. And the author you're talking about was Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow. And yes, I have read it.

Yay, great, really important book. And thank you so much. This was such a fun forum. And thank you, Lisa and Lois, for, for like talking about this huge topic. I was like, oh yay, Trauma in education, like, yes, there's so many problems.

Yeah, I really, I really enjoyed meeting you, and it was great having this discussion. I think it's, it's really a—

I think that's it—

topic, and we just need more of it.

Yes, we've just— we're just trying to share, to limit the damage, and to have people think a little more widely about consequences And all that we're doing, particularly for those that struggle the most. So thank you, thank you very much. And next week, join us at 4 o'clock. We've got Tricia Cook. Hit like, hit subscribe, and notifications for the bell, whatever. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies.