Beside Every Struggle is a Gift: The Art of Neurodivergence

Welcome And Why This Matters

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Ann. I am Anne. And I thought that we could have another little talk. And this one is on the gift of neurodivergence, the art of being neurodivergent, the gift of being neurodivergent. You know, when I was five years old, I was diagnosed with significant learning disabilities, and the expectations, the expectation wasn't that I would go to college. The expectation wasn't that I would become a journalist, run a podcast, write a book, spend my life helping others tell their stories, which is one of my favorite things to do. In fact, there were serious concerns about whether I would even graduate high school through the traditional route. And I always knew, I always knew that I was different. I knew because everyone in the room pretty much just knew what to do and joined in. And I didn't have a clue. Even when it came to playing, I

Growing Up With Learning Disabilities

would watch everybody just run in and join in. And I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be me. And that's actually a profound statement that me as a neurodivergent individual didn't even know how to be me. My mom put me in acting classes to help me figure out how to act around others because I wasn't acting appropriately or didn't know how to join in, I guess. And I was in etiquette classes to learn how to hold myself and conduct myself. And I slowly and gradually started to figure out the room I was in. Being different wasn't the problem. Back then, people weren't talking about autism, they weren't talking about fetal alcohol syndrome, people weren't talking about executive functioning and neurodivergence. They just weren't. What they knew was that my brain wasn't doing what it needed to for me to be successful in traditional ways. But here's what nobody knew I was already building my own toolbox. I learned how to learn. And one of the greatest gifts that I ever gave myself was learning how to do it myself. School was designed for most students, but it wasn't designed for me. So I had a choice. I could spend my life wishing that I learned like everyone else, or I could figure out how my brain worked. And that's exactly what I did. I became a student of myself. I learned what helped, I learned what didn't, I learned how to compensate, I learned how to adapt, and I learned how to build systems as an adult for my kids, which helped me as well. I learned how to survive, and eventually I learned how to thrive. One of the things that people kind of laugh at me about, and it's true, but I have, I everywhere I go, I use external brains. From the time I was a kid, as long as I could remember, I would look to everybody in the room and I would try to copy what they were doing, figure out what was expected of me. I didn't know what my teachers were even asking

Learning How My Brain Learns

us to do a lot of times in the classroom. So I would look around. I mean, it probably looked like I was cheating, but I wasn't. I was just trying to figure out what we were supposed to do. I realized as a young adult that I really needed someone around me in order to understand grocery stores, going out to eat, buffets, just everyday living outside of the house. So I felt like I was a young child when I was in my 20s, and I really relied on the adults around me. Communication was hard for me. Advocating was hard for me. I didn't have my voice yet. So I did eventually find trusted people to look to when I would go out in public to and help me figure out how to navigate. Trust really is the biggest piece, though, when you're looking to external brains, because that allows a person with neurodivergence to let go. And that's huge. So one of the things you have to do if you're doing this, and a lot of us with neurodivergence, we do look around to look for help. And you want to make sure that the person that you're looking to to help you trust. I carried other external tools with me as well: notebooks, lists, notes, reminders, you know, and people sometimes saw deficits, but I saw solutions and I wasn't trying to learn like everyone

External Brains And Everyday Navigation

else. I was creating tools that worked for me. And honestly, many successful people do exactly the same thing. I often think of Thomas Edison and how he figured out the hundreds of ways not to invent the light bulb until he figured out how it worked. That is what we have to do. I mean, honestly, one of the best gifts my mom did for me was show how resilient she was and how strong I could be. I was left to figure things out by myself, often because she had to work full-time after my dad died. So my childhood after the age of 11 consisted of most of the time I was by myself in the house, and my mom had TV dinners for me. You know, that that was what they called him back then. I couldn't cook, but I could heat up a TV dinner. So, you know, that's just called strategy. Looking back, I think I accidentally developed resilience long before I even knew the word. Because when things are difficult, you learn something. You learn how to get back up, you learn how to try again, you learn how to fall without quitting, you learn how to adapt. And eventually you stop asking, why is this harder for me? And you start asking, what can I do differently? That question really did change my life. You know, it's kind of like that going down the same street and falling in the same hole. I mean, you really do just have to think outside of the box and figure it out. I have to be honest, I really did learn it before most have to become independent. I had to. But it truly did give me the skills to be successful as an adult. Everything I've gone through, every stepping stone from different jobs, everything has gotten me

Resilience Built Through Hard Seasons

to this moment in time. And it has you as well. I want to talk about the podcast because honestly, if you looked at my educational records when I was a child, this podcast shouldn't even exist. I struggled with comprehension and retention and processing information and executive functioning. Yet every week I sit down with authors and experts and guests and discuss their work. How do I do that? I built systems and I learned how to take notes. I learned how to condense information and I learned how to create visual connections. I learned how to organize information in ways that my brain could not hold differently than that. I mean, I just figured it out. I didn't overcome neurodivergence. I am still very neurodivergent. I learned how to work with it, and that's a very different thing. This step is important because the podcast creates distance. I am not great at communicating when people are in my immediate presence. Eye contact isn't great. I lose a lot of the abilities when others are around. This is a very fun fact, though. I can speak in front of crowds and be at ease. But speaking one-on-one with someone in person can be petrifying. That's really crazy. You put me up on a platform and I can

Systems That Make The Podcast Possible

talk amongst the, you know, over a crowd, and I'm okay. But I really to be in a crowd of people like where I'm expected to socialize, that's a different story. That's not that's way too hard for me, too. Do I do it sometimes? Yes, but I come out of it saying, hey, I need a minute. And it's really hard for me to do something like that. People often focus on what neurodivergent people struggle with. And I do want to talk about what we bring. One of my greatest strategies is connection making. And when you think of an autistic individual like myself, you don't think that we can make great connections, but we actually see patterns and connections and things that a lot of other people don't. And when I read a book, I don't just see words, I can see relationships and patterns and themes and pictures and stories, and I can connect one chapter to another, one experience to another, one lesson to another, and suddenly a bigger, a bigger picture appears. And that ability became the foundation of being able to do this because it's how I interview, it's how I write, it's how I understand people. And when I was assigned stories as a hard news and feature story journalist, I absolutely loved the connections. It was hard because I felt everything so deeply. And there were some very hard stories that I had to cover, but they were people. They were not just stories to me. It was very personal to me. Uh it would there was a lot of heartache. I think part of being neurodivergent gave me some something precious, curiosity. And I genuinely want to understand people. I want

The Strength Of Pattern Connections

to know what shaped them, what hurt them, what healed them, what made them who they are. When I interview someone, I'm not just gathering information, I'm building a picture. I'm trying to understand the story. And the, I guess you could say the story beneath the story. That's why I love what I do. I also have like this. Well, I have a social worker degree. And well, it's a degree in counseling, but I did do a lot of social work. And one of the things that I ended up doing was doing that, I see connections. And as soon as I would see a person in need when I was doing hard news with the newspaper, I would see a need, and then I would connect other people and say, hey, you know, this person needs a house, this person needs a van, this person needs a wheelchair ramp. And it just led to one thing after another. And so many people were helped because of that. So the writing from hard news to features ended up actually becoming a mission to me where my interest in people became more than just a story. For a long time, people focused on what I couldn't do: the disability, the struggles, the deficits. And those things were real. They mattered, but they were never the whole story. And that's the whole point to being different. Because alongside those challenges were gifts, creativity, perseverance, adaptability, determination, problem solving, the ability to think differently, the ability to connect deeply, the ability to keep going. I wouldn't only allow myself to sit in a problem for a minute and start to begin to figure out pretty quickly that I needed to move on. I needed the solution. It taught me how to be tough. It taught me that there is more than one way to learn. Writing allowed me a way to communicate because I wasn't able to really use my voice. So I

Different Is Not Less

figured out ways to communicate differently. I know that people thought I was strange as a kid and a young adult. A young adult, I would do that. And I would write notes and give it to people when I really wanted to say something serious because it was for sure not going to be able to come out of my mouth the way I wanted it to. So I would just write it down and hand it to people. My mom constantly told me, Well, that's not what you said. Well, that's what I meant, but that's not what you said. So I mean, I often felt that what came out of my mouth wasn't what I was thinking. This is another tool that I have developed in my brain as I have worked. You know, I have worked and practiced, and I am much better at oral communication now. But it's like parts of your brain are muscles, and and you have to work that part. And for me, anyway, I mean, I wasn't able to read a book and comprehend it, but now because of how hard I've worked and worked at it, I'm able to do it pretty well and remember things a lot better than I used to be able to. There is more than one way to succeed. There is more than one way to contribute. It taught me that different isn't less. It taught me that accommodations are not weaknesses. It taught me that asking for help is wisdom. And it taught me that systems create freedom. And it taught me that our greatest struggles often sit right beside our greatest gifts. This brings me back to purpose. Would I choose every struggle? No, of course not. Would I choose every frustration? No. Would I choose every moment of feeling different? No, not at all, especially in my younger years, no. But I would never erase what it taught me because every challenge forced me to develop another tool, another skill, another strategy, another layer of resilience. And eventually those tools became part of who I am. I don't not do something that is hard. I figure it out. There are many paths to the final outcome. I honestly don't even believe in excuses.

Purpose, Hope, And The Close

If you're neurodivergent, I want you to hear this. Your brain may work differently, but different is not defective, different is not broken, it's not less. You may need a different toolbox, you may need different strategies, you may need a different path. But different paths still lead somewhere beautiful. I know because I walked one. Being neurodivergent didn't hold me back. In many ways, it became one of the greatest gifts of my life. It's been an amazing view. So pick up your toolbox and figure it out. And as I always say, at the end of every episode, there is purpose in the pain and there is hope in the journey. And as usual, we will see you next time.