Dr. Samantha Hiew

Definitely confusion to begin with.

It's like, what on earth am I dealing with?

Cognitive dissonance is a big one, just because either...

The labels of ADHD and autism doesn't fully really explain what all ADHD is.

Then you're like, oh, what does it actually mean then?

You know, when it varies so much for everyone, then there is that denial.

You know, I don't think so.

You know, and then...

you start to bargain, you know, with the world in terms of wanting people to understand you.

And then you over-explain yourself, you over-share, you know, many, many people in this community, they end up pivoting their work after they get diagnosed.

And they, you know, they want to come out of their corporate work.

They want to work, you know, and they want to create companies, being trainers and speakers and, you know, all these things like that.

But it's just in an effort to really try and excavate and understand what it means to them.

And yeah, so that is that integration.

But then before that even happens, there's more of that that we talked about in a previous episode where there is definitely that anger of being misunderstood and then channeling that in your workplace or relationships that can sometimes backfire sometimes.

Yeah, so many people see the neurodevelopmental aspects

condition that is autism and adhd not from the medical model you know we see it from the social model where it is because of the way society is organized that you know has created these challenges and i do believe it but also as a woman with my you know changes that happen in in my life with hormones i know how much biology you know really changes um how well i can present

myself and the positive side to it is that when you really learn to own your authentic strength you know and start to construct a life that is so aligned with who you are

you know in every area of your life whether it's your friendships your relationships and your work you know then you have less of those troubling years and troubling things that happen because you learn to become more discerning but also then you start to channel the strengths that you are born with like that in the ability to you know look at a big picture

that is traditionally ADHD trait right but then also the ability to zone in to detail and spot the patterns and link together you connect the patterns you know and connect the dots that were never connected by other people and then you can use those strengths to propel you into the next phase of your life but first there's this liminal state that we need to go through before we get there