For All Abilities

In this episode, I interview Allie Mason. We discuss the challenge of her diagnosis of autism while she was working on a graduate degree. We also talk about how she has navigated school and work with the diagnosis. To connect with Allie,  please follow her on LinkedIn (Allie Mason), on Instagram at whensouthmetnorth and on Facebook at Where Allie Writes.  

I am talking in this episode with Anvita Jain about her journey with generalized anxiety and how she navigates the workplace as a human resources professional.   Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!     Follow Betsy on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetsyFurler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forallabilities Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-furler Join our newsletter or find out more about our software and services for employers: http://www.forallabilities.com

In this episode, I interview Tim Irr, Anchor at WSAZ-TV in West Virginia. We discuss the challenges of his ADHD. Tim talks about his childhood and the challenges he faced in the classroom. He discusses how he ended up in television news and how it is the perfect fit for his strengths.   Read more about Tim here.   To connect with Tim, please follow him on LinkedIn, email him at tim.irr@wsaz.com, or connect on Twitter.     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Follow Betsy on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/BetsyFurler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forallabilities Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsy-furler Join our newsletter or find out more about our software and services for employers: http://www.forallabilities.com

For this episode, we interviewed Cassidy Hooper about living with Turner Syndrome.  Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And I'm back here today to talk to yet another amazing person with Nord neurodiversity, and he's going to talk about her life and how she's using her skills as a person with autism to make a difference in this world. So well show Cassidy Hooper, how are you? Cassidy Hooper 1:00 I'm good. How are you better see the sunrise, your podcast? Yes. So Betsy Furler 1:05 I'm so excited to have you. So why don't you introduce yourself real quick to our audience? Cassidy Hooper 1:11 Yes, of course. So I'm Cassidy Hooper. First, I'm from North East Mississippi. And I was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called Turner Syndrome. When I was nine days old, and at around 17 years old, I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. And as far as neuro, neuro diversity, and what I do for the autism community is I do some advocacy work for the art of North East Mississippi. I am the community navigator for the autism now division within the ark. And um, yeah, so that's a little bit about me. Betsy Furler 1:57 So what were you like as a little girl? What do you remember about your childhood? I guess, you your diagnosis you knew of when you were little was Turner Syndrome? Cassidy Hooper 2:07 Yes. Um, well, as a child, I was always really sick. Um, but I was in the hospital for a while. But, um, I didn't walk until I was around like 19 months. And so yeah, that's, that's pretty much all I know, for my childhood. Um, I was pretty much sick. Throughout. Betsy Furler 2:38 What about school? Did you enjoy going to school? Cassidy Hooper 2:41 Yeah, um, for me, it was hard to always stay to myself most of the time. I didn't really connect with the other, my peers, um, with other kids? Very much. I just stayed to myself most of the time, but I think I've gotten better socially, as I've gotten older. Um, so yeah. Betsy Furler 3:08 What about in high school did you do in? Were you in special ed classes? Or were you in general ed classes? Cassidy Hooper 3:14 general ed? Oh, good. Okay. Good. Betsy Furler 3:17 And in high school, did you do band or any extracurricular activities? Or did you pretty much just stay with the academic classes? Cassidy Hooper 3:26 I stayed with the academic classes pretty much my entire high school career. Betsy Furler 3:33 Did you what kind of grades did you make? Did you do okay, or was it hard for you? Cassidy Hooper 3:38 Yeah, I did pretty good. Um, I was actually, when I graduated high school. I was for highest ranking in my class with honors when I graduated high school, so Unknown Speaker 3:52 I, yeah, he got really well. Cassidy Hooper 3:55 Yeah. So that's cool. Yeah. What Unknown Speaker 3:59 did you do after high school? Cassidy Hooper 4:02 Well, I went to a local community college, but it didn't work out. So I'm now currently not going to college anymore. So yeah, it didn't work out. Because no, I had to take a math elective. And that's my worst subject. I had visual spatial awareness issues. So math was really a struggle for me. And I had to take college algebra. So yeah, yeah. So it was difficult. So that college wasn't for me. So I was drew and but yeah, Betsy Furler 4:46 yeah, college is not for everybody, right, and doesn't necessarily even give us the skills we need. So what have How did you have you had any other jobs besides the job at the arc that you're currently doing? Cassidy Hooper 5:00 Well, I, I went to rehab, called Building words. But that didn't work out either. So it wasn't a good fit for me. So Betsy Furler 5:15 what kind of jobs did they have you doing Cassidy Hooper 5:17 over there? Why would like woodworking and things like that, like factory work? Betsy Furler 5:24 probably wasn't good for somebody with visual spatial challenges either, right? Cassidy Hooper 5:31 Yeah, exactly. Betsy Furler 5:32 Doesn't sound like a good, good fit for your strengths. Cassidy Hooper 5:36 Yes, exactly. Unknown Speaker 5:39 So how did you come up with the arc? Cassidy Hooper 5:42 Um, I got involved, I connected with the president Cheryl file zone of the arc of Northeast Mississippi chapter locally here. And she, we met, and she just thought that would be a good fit to volunteer at the art as the community navigator. So right now it's a volunteer position. But it's awesome to know advocate for individuals with autism. As someone with autism, I think it's really important to have that experience and to mentor other individuals with autism. So that's been great. Yeah, Betsy Furler 6:35 I agree. Because they're things that you don't know. Unless you've lived it yourself. Cassidy Hooper 6:41 Yes, absolutely. Betsy Furler 6:43 So tell me what kind of things do you do for your Do you call them clients are? What do you call the people that you work with? Cassidy Hooper 6:52 No, no. Um, well, right now, because of the pandemic, it's hard to get the programming going for this division? Uh, huh. No, with the pandemic and all. So we're trying to do some fundraising and things like that to get it going. And, yeah, so it's been tough, you know, with the pandemic, but we're trying to get it going. And, yeah, Betsy Furler 7:22 that's amazing. So what is your dream for what you would like to do in the future? Cassidy Hooper 7:30 for the future, I would like to become a mentor for other individuals with autism. And just, you know, know that they're not alone. And they can be any time they want to be. They can be, they can have a job, they can do anything they want to do in our lives. And autism shouldn't stop them from living our life. Betsy Furler 8:01 That's awesome. So what else do you like to do? What do you like to do for fun? Cassidy Hooper 8:07 Fun, I like listening to music and watching TV and movies and things like that. Yeah. What's your what's? Betsy Furler 8:17 What's your favorite TV show right now? Cassidy Hooper 8:20 I love the Big Bang Theory. And I love the good doctor. Betsy Furler 8:27 I like I really like the big bang theory. I've only seen a couple of episodes of the good doctor, but I really big bang theory. Cassidy Hooper 8:35 Yeah, Betsy Furler 8:36 I did a I did a TED talk just the other day on using our strengths and our differences as our superpowers. And I talked about people who were to he are twice exceptional, who have a cognitive difference or disability as well as academic giftedness. And when I was memorizing, memorizing my speech, I had some pictures that I was looking at to try to help me remember, you know, the different areas of the speech. And I used a picture of Sheldon for that too. Cassidy Hooper 9:04 He Yeah. Betsy Furler Yeah. And so what, um, you said you want to do advocacy, advocacy for people with autism in the future for your work or continue that because that's what you're what you're working on right now. And what do you think your strengths are in the workforce? Because sounds like he made great grades. And so you know, what, what do you think your strengths are that you can bring? Bring to an organization? Cassidy Hooper 9:37 I Yes, well, um, you know, I'm really good on and resources. I'm a very big researcher, and paying attention to detail like I'm very detail oriented. Yeah, and so yeah, I think that will be really awesome for workforce? Betsy Furler 10:01 Absolutely, yeah, those are skills that a lot of people don't have or the or they have no interest in it, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think I really believe everybody needs to find what they do well, and then figure out a job that can use those skills because that way you're happier. And the people that you work for happier. Yeah, we're all happier when we're using our strengths. Cassidy Hooper 10:24 Yes, absolutely. Betsy Furler 10:26 Not having to do something that's difficult and, you know, not built on what we like to do and what we do well. Yeah, well, Cassidy this has been awesome. I'm I think our my audience is going to really appreciate hearing from you and they might want to connect with you. How could people connect with you if in the future? Cassidy Hooper 10:47 Yes, so I have a Facebook Cassidy Hooper. See a SS ID blog. h o. p er. So they can connect me on Facebook. And I also have an Instagram, Miss Cassidy Eden. So that's my Instagram handle. And I connect with me there's Wales. So yeah, with the questions you have. And if you want to connect me and follow me and bring me you can, so yeah. Unknown Speaker 11:26 Awesome. Well, thank Betsy Furler 11:26 you so much for being on the show. Cassidy Hooper 11:30 You're welcome. And I enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. And audience. Thank Betsy Furler 11:34 you so much for tuning in. Again, please rate, review, subscribe, and all those things with this podcast on whatever podcast platform you're listening to. And if you want to know more about the company that I founded, for all abilities, you can go to my website at for all abilities calm, to find out about how we help businesses, support their customers and their employees with disabilities and also help them reach required mandates from the ADA for federal and corporate contracting. And you can also follow me on LinkedIn at Betsy Furler f er le AR. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks so much for listening to the for all abilities podcast. This is Betsy Furler, y

On this episode, we interview David Sharif about working with  autism.    Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And I'm so excited to be here again today talking to all of you, and another special guest. I'll introduce him in a minute. But I hope you all join us for an interesting conversation on autism, neuro diversity, and why we all need to value the differences of others as well as our own differences. So today, we have David Sheree with us and I probably mispronounced his name, but he's gonna tell us in a minute, he has autism and is a Autism Awareness advocate. And I'm really excited to hear about David's life story, and how autism has affected his life. So welcome, David. David Sharif 1:19 Thank you for having me. Oh, and before anything, you perfectly pronounced my last name, so don't worry. Betsy Furler 1:26 Oh, it's a miracle. Unknown Speaker 1:27 Yeah. Betsy Furler 1:29 So why don't you just introduce yourself to my audience? David Sharif 1:33 Sure. So my name is David Sharif. I am a magnet come loud, a graduate of Pace University with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and Peace and Justice Studies. And I currently live in Ridgewood, New York. Betsy Furler 1:47 Awesome. So usually we start the show by talking a little bit about what you were like as a little boy, and your diagnosis everywhere you remember it? I think I read you were diagnosed as around the age of four. Yeah, so you may or may not remember that. But anyway, tell us tell us your own words to tell us about that. David Sharif 2:07 So yeah, I actually do remember my diagnosis. And I kind of noticed my behavioral challenges during my world travels, because I grew up in a family, where global citizenship and traveling the world is a huge passion. So what happened was my family and I were flying back to the United States from Pakistan, at the airport, and Islam about a security guard wanted to look into my suitcase. And I lashed out when that happened, but then my parents had to help me. And then they were able to tell the security, check the security guards that he that he is different. And then so that situation was handled. And then by the time we got back to Los Angeles, I was taken to the pediatrics to be evaluated. I had my early therapy sessions. And I was also a part of a youth group, where I really, really explored, I'd been where I explored the arts in various ways, before I got enrolled into a school that provides different supports for kids with learning differences from pre preschool, kindergarten to high school. Betsy Furler 3:32 Awesome, and you obviously are a smart person. Because you graduated from college, and with honors and you did it in four years, correct? I did, which is not necessarily like, you know, people don't have to do that. But it is an accomplishment in like now it's definitely an accomplishment. So congratulations on that. David Sharif 3:53 Thank you. Betsy Furler 3:54 So what was what were you? What were your academic? and academics like early on? So like in elementary school? Did you struggle in school? Or did you always do pretty well? David Sharif 4:06 So back in elementary school on the workload wasn't that tedious. Um, so during elementary school, we had something called spelling tests, they were a combination of short words, long words. And the spelling tests didn't matter about the words that we got, right? It's really about learning how we spell them how we learn from mistakes. And, and even before I got into upper elementary school, we had separate reading groups based on the comprehension skills of other students. And then we were reading stories that we were familiar with and were not familiar with. We had to learn how to catch words that specified the main idea of a story. And then moving into around fifth or sixth grade. This was a really, really fun learning style. That I enjoyed very much. And it was visualizing and verbalizing, which is looking at an image using 12 different categories to picture the, what the image is representing. And also, we had to do the same thing with stories that were around four to five sentences. And really, really studying the essence of how you can comprehend a long story when you start to read longer books, and especially stories that are not going to be black and white. But even before fifth and sixth grade, my peers and I were very, very lucky to have had a teacher who really helped us improve our reading skills with analogies, synonyms, opposites. And he was so great because he helped everyone improve their reading skills. And we even learned how to catch verbs, nouns, adjectives, we had to mark do different markings on what we discovered and what we read. And we, and moving into the advancements of technology, we learned how to type properly on the keys with different sources that teach us how to type sentences. And then without looking at big computers, we had alpha smarts that have the keys in the same spot. And that's how we practiced our typing to see if we made errors if we didn't make errors. This is really all about discovering the way we learn how we are different. And sometimes the challenge of it is, there are students who are more advanced than other ones. There are students who have a who are following the criteria greatly. Students who have really, really kept up with the needed criteria to move forward to further education. And sometimes there is a lot of argument between students about that. I had been in that situation before. And and it was certainly not fun at all. Betsy Furler 7:14 I love the visualizing and verbalizing idea. And I'm a speech pathologist by training. I don't know if I told you that earlier. Um, so that is so interesting. I love it when I hear people's stories about great things that happened to them in school. And clearly that made a huge impact on you and probably helped you all the way through college. Oh, yeah. David Sharif 7:37 Well, I actually wanted to bring up to the point was, after elementary school, the administration told me that I would not graduate high school. So then in my first year of middle school, I was not on the deployment track. In the school that I went to, there are three different tracks. The diploma track is the advanced track where your learning styles are right at the expectations and you can go to any college you wish to go do so and then from diploma track, there is the certificate track where you are doing work that is kind of too easy, you're not really challenged the way you expect yourself to be. And depending on how your learning styles go, you can potentially take some college courses and classroom settings at community colleges, but not at universities. And the lowest one of the mall is this other certificate program where you really have not improved your learning styles far enough into the point that, okay, this is not going to go well for you. And then after your high school years are done, you're going to go into some different kind of training program that will prepare you for things that may be easier for you. And how it works is if you are not on the diploma track, like I said earlier, that you are not eligible to apply to colleges. Without a doubt you are not eligible to apply to universities, or even schools that are nationally recognized as the top or best ones. Unknown Speaker 9:16 Wow. So you found this out in middle school? David Sharif 9:18 Yes, I did. So in seventh grade, I really didn't care about not being on the diploma track because I was actually too busy with preparing for my bar mitzvah. But then when my brother went to college in New York City, I got very, very upset about it because I was going to be humble alone and I had nobody to mess around with. So and so in eighth grade. I started in in the certificate track of the middle of eighth grade and so my parents advocated for me to proceed to the diplomat track. So in the middle of eighth grade, I went to the diploma track and I was succeeding very well in it and then when I got it into high school, I was placed in the deployment track what I wanted and expected. But then there were multiple meetings with my parents, the teachers and the principals about my learning progress, how I was doing and the strategies that are going to be needed for me to stay in the program and to pass my classes successfully. And I am very, very proud to say that all throughout high school, I had made the aorta row five times and the A and B are in a row three times. Betsy Furler 10:31 That's amazing. And, you know, what also is amazing is that I'm so thankful you had the parents that you did, who helped you advocate for that. And you think about the kids who have autism, who don't have parents who are able to advocate for them or don't know that they should, and don't person confidence in their children. And you know, what they miss out on and with their education? David Sharif 11:00 Well, I really, really do want to bring something out onto this point that I have been around kids who were who did not respect me or did not like me because of my academic success, and that I was doing better than them. This is not school related. But I was also miss treated for finding a home away from home, which is a summer camp that I went to the Poconos, which I also called my imaginary Where's wizarding school, I am a huge Harry Potter fan. And I have memories of watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone every weekend when I was like four or five years old, when my

On this episode, we hear from Jeff Synder. Jeff was diagnosed with autism as a child. He was nonverbal and talks about learning to talk. He walks us through his journey to becoming a public speaker and advocate.   Betsy Furler 0:05 Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is Betsy Furler, your host and I'm excited to be here to introduce you to another special guest. And this podcast is all about talking to people who are living successfully with neuro diversity, like autism, ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences, as well as other disabilities, because I am so passionate about all of us embracing our differences and the differences of others, because I think our different brains are what really makes our world an interesting, productive and efficient place. So today, our special guest is Jeff Snyder. Welcome to the podcast. Jeff. Jeff Snyder 1:16 Thank you for inviting me, Betsy. Yes. Why don't you introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Okay, well, my name is Jeff Snyder. I am 31 years old from seekonk, Massachusetts, here in Providence, Rhode Island. And I have been I was first diagnosed with autism at 21 months old. I've I am a 2007, graduate of seekonk High School. And upon my graduation, I was the first student with autism to have completed pre K through grade 12 in the seekonk public school system. Um, my day job is I work as a janitor, janitorial specialists for a major supermarket company up here. And I and since 2015, I have been living in my own apartment, and I am also a home. I'm also a panelist on the show on the weekly video series, Ask an Autistic every Tuesday, which is on every Tuesday night at eight o'clock on YouTube. And I am also a avid world traveler and I am also a fan fiction writer. Betsy Furler 2:28 Awesome. Well, I'm so excited that you're here. And as we talked earlier, you probably don't remember your diagnosis at 21 months. And but what do you know about your early childhood? What were you I like when you were a really young child? Jeff Snyder 2:46 Well, when I was really young I I didn't, I was very much nonverbal. And when I was first diagnosed with autism, I, I remember I couldn't talk I would sometimes resort to hitting things and throwing things just to communicate. And it wasn't. And it wasn't until about 1998 when the serious news came to my house to interview me for a special that they were doing on a thing called autism. And until that moment, I didn't know I was on the autism spectrum. And it was not until they came to my house, they that I found out about my diagnosis. So you might say it, it took about I didn't know till I was about nine years old that I was on spectrum. Betsy Furler 3:45 Wow. When did you and when did you start talking? Do you know? Jeff Snyder 3:50 I remember I think I was nonverbal. I think I was about four years old. Betsy Furler 3:56 That's amazing. I'm a speech pathologist by training. So I'm always very interested in hearing stories of people who were late talkers, who were now who are now communicating well, so that's amazing. So what was it like when you went off to school when you went to kindergarten and then to elementary school? Jeff Snyder 4:18 Well, I began my education. In 1992. When I was three years old, I was enrolled. I was enrolled in like a special special school special preschool and then that was an odd northborough. I was at a I was at St. Lawrence school in North Providence, which was where I began my educational journey and then and then I began my my my proper preschool training in 1993 at teddy bear preschool here in seekonk. And then I first enrolled in the I first went into the seekonk public school system in 1994. And when I went In when I was in kindergarten, I met a really, really nice um, I had a really nice teacher and, and the funny story is that when I graduated from priests from from preschool, teddy bear preschool, I had met my kindergarten teacher and and for some reason I, I somehow don't remember saying this but from what I heard was my kindergarten said, Geoffrey Snyder, are you looking forward to going into Miss coils, kindergarten Catholic kindergarten class, and I said, Geoffrey Paul Snyder is and going into Miss coils kindergarten class, and, and for some reason I I don't, I mean, I don't remember saying that. But, but I guess that's what the story is. And then when I was throughout elementary school, I had been, um, during the summers, I would get, like, assisted tutoring from my kindergarten teacher, I remember throughout my entire elementary school career during the summer, I would, I would go undergo special tutoring with her, we would, you know, get out into the community and do things and we also do summer, the equivalent of summer readings. So, so I mean, I, I did have some, it was all included in my individual education wise plan or IEP. So, you might say that, um, I did have some kind of assistant training during my, during the first half of my school career ran through till I went into middle school. Betsy Furler 6:37 Were you in general ed classes or in special ed classes in elementary school? Jeff Snyder 6:42 I was in general ed classes, but I was again on the IEP and I would um, for like, a few times a few times a day, I would do speech, I would do occupational therapy. I would do like, learning sent home or club I mean, because I'm a lot of us don't like to do homework at home, we would rather do it at school. So I I have that luxury of doing that. So, um, but I'm but for the most part, I was in general, I was in regular sized classes in elementary school. Betsy Furler 7:18 What about middle school? So most kids in middle school start doing you know, more extracurricular activities, sports, choir band, things like that? And what was middle school like for you? And did you do any of those extracurricular type activities. Jeff Snyder 7:34 When I was in middle school, I was actually put into special i was i was put into special education classes. And as a matter of fact, some of the pilot programs that were created around me are actually still in existence to this very day, believe it or not, um, and, I mean, I attended all I attended all regular classes, but but one thing I will, I will say is the one special class I was special, a class I was a part of was special in math. And for the first two years, sixth and seventh grade, I was in special ed English. And when I, when I went into eighth grade, I was put in a regular English class, because our reason was that because the teacher, my English teacher, they had an eighth grade, also taught my sister and she had become, she had become very enamored of me through my sister. So that was how I started to kind of branch out of doings regular English classes, but I still did on special ed, math classes in sixth and seventh grade. And then, for the first semester of my eighth grade year, I was in a regular math class when that didn't work out. I went back into a special ed, math class. Betsy Furler 8:57 And then you went on to high school and you went through the same feeder pattern, right. So you were kind of with the same kids from elementary, middle and high school. Jeff Snyder 9:08 Well, I mean, for the most part, yes. No, I mean, like, um, like when I got to middle school, things kind of changed. I, in terms of students, I did have some are regular. I did have some classmates that follow me to the high school program, but then I went, but I did, but I did stay in. I did stay in a specialized math class from ninth grade, and 10th grade and, and all the other classes amazingly were. Were all regular sized classes, and the only class I didn't take in high school was foreign language. Because because they offered Spanish, French Portuguese And I couldn't do all those things. So that was it that was in my IP. That was including my IP that I would not take a foreign language class. And I actually didn't take gym class my freshman year, but in sophomore and my senior year, I did take some classes. So Betsy Furler 10:22 that's interesting about the foreign language I was I was actually just thinking about that today about a child that I know who's he's six, he's in first grade. And he's in a school, a private school that he has to take two different foreign languages. And I was thinking today about oh, my goodness, that's, I think this is so confusing for him. So I'm glad you had a different experience and didn't have to, didn't have to do that. Um, did you like being in general ed class classes or in special ed classroom classes more? Jeff Snyder 10:56 Well, I mean, there were some generalized classes that had about 30 people. So I will say from firsthand experience, that it can be overstimulating to be in a class of 30 people, but when I was when I was younger, I would always mask my emotions. So that I could try to fit in and, and looking back now. I mean, I, part of me wishing asked importantly, wished I didn't ask but, but for the most part, I mean, if I wasn't in, if I wasn't in regular classes in high school, then things would be a lot different right now, because I had a friend that I gotten to know, a lot of my gen ed teachers on a personal level. And if, if I wasn't in general, if I wasn't in those general classes, then things would be a lot different. So it was more about the personal relationships, that was more than the actual class size. Betsy Furler 12:01 Okay. That's interesting. So when you said when you were really little, you would throw things and kind of have temper tantrums around communication? And what was your quote unquote, behavior? Like, in middle and high school?

For All Abilities – The Podcast Liz De La Torre - A Successful Nursing Career with ADHD   For this episode of For All Abilities: The Podcast, I spoke with Liz De La Torre - one of my son's nurses. She talks about her nursing career and ADHD.  To connect with Henry, please email her at liz.torre60@gmail.com.    Please subscribe to For All Abilities – The Podcast! Please follow me on Instagram @forallabilities, LinkedIn (Betsy Furler) and on Facebook (For All Abilities). Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Transcription by Otter.ai   Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody. This is Betsy, your host for all abilities. Thank you so much for joining me today on my podcast. This podcast is meant to inspire everyone to use all of their differences as their strengths. And we frequently talk about neuro diversity and how it's so important to have different brains in this world. Today I have a special guest, Liz della toray hopefully I said that correctly, Liz, please introduce yourself to my audience.   Liz de la Torre  1:05   Hi, I'm Liz de la Torre. And I am 60 years old. I've been a nurse for 37 years. And I have been ADHD actually since I was 21 years old. So 49 years 39 long time.   Betsy Furler  1:24   Awesome. And we met, um, because you have been my son, Henry's nurse, several multiple times. And we got started talking and I was so glad that you agreed to be on the podcast. And so I guess I gave people a little bit of a teaser that you're a nurse professionally, but we'll get to that in a minute. And so tell us what were you like when you were a little girl?   Liz de la Torre  1:48   So when I was little, I went to Catholic schools and it was just strict girls school nuns only, and I never could sit still back then there wasn't a day diagnosis of and so I was always getting spanked, pinched ears cold, you got ants in your pants, that kind of situation. And I would try, you know, super hard to just sit down and pay attention but I couldn't because I was my mind was going elsewhere and I needed to get up. So it was that kind of thing. I'm home. It was pretty. I had an older brother. He was nine years older than me and it was kind of like, he was also in a private school. But he would poke at me, I think, I guess he knew, you know that something. I couldn't sit sit still or whatever it was that he would always poke at me and get me in trouble with my parents. Especially. Yeah,   Betsy Furler  2:52   you spent a lot of time in trouble. It sounds like   Liz de la Torre  2:55   I did. I did and it was like, as hard as I would try. Boom, you get it.   Betsy Furler  3:02   Right, you just couldn't make your body do fit into the box of what they wanted you to how they wanted you to behave. Correct. So what about when you got on to middle school in high school?   Liz de la Torre  3:16   Okay, so middle school and high school the same kind of situations with the nuns. And, you know, once you're in middle school, there was it wasn't like we have normal schools now I kind of just float into the next one and then it flowed into high school. But it was pretty much the same thing. grades, I could make super good grades without even studying. But if I didn't care to do it, I would just kind of you know breeze through it because like I said, My mind was going 50,000 miles a minute, and I didn't understand what was the deal. Why didn't everybody else think in speed version like I did.   Betsy Furler  3:57   Did you go to the same school for 12 years or were you did you move at each different level?   Liz de la Torre  4:04   So much amount Sacred Heart, which was the elementary school and I went there through sixth grade. And then seventh grade at Incarnate Word. This was in San Antonio Incarnate Word open their seventh and eighth grade. So that's where I went seventh through 12th grade.   Betsy Furler  4:23   Okay. Okay, so it's kind of same feeder pattern, so to speak, but different schools. So, what did you think? Well, let me ask you about homework, first of all, because I, as I've interviewed so many people, homework seems to have been a big issue for people, lots of people with ADHD. How did you do with homework?   Liz de la Torre  4:44   No, my homework I had was impeccable. I would, I would do it all the time. And I wanted my homework to be perfect. It had to be. I actually we were laughing the other day at work. Because, um, my grandmother taught me how to write and she would take erasers off the big pencils. Well, my brother came home one day and he was bothering me. I was writing my ABCs and he said, What are you doing? Then I kept saying, I'm writing, I'm writing and he pushed my arm so my pencil went across the paper. Ultimately, I was ruining my paper. The man died with the red mark in his in his eye.   Unknown Speaker  5:26   Literally.   Betsy Furler  5:27   Hey, I think a lot of us have scars still from pencils been poked out. Yeah, he definitely deserved that. And well, that's interesting about the homework. So why do you think the homework was easier for you to concentrate on than the schoolwork?   Liz de la Torre  5:45   I don't know. Maybe it was maybe it was because I was in my own environment. Maybe it was because somebody wasn't telling me constantly your back your or pinching at me or poking at me or doing something to me. Maybe that's what it was. I really don't know.   Betsy Furler  6:03   Did you do homework in silence? Or did you have like background noise and things like that?   Liz de la Torre  6:09   No, I always had to have and looking back on it now. I've always had to have some kind of noise. Music mainly going on background.   Betsy Furler  6:20   I went homework versus in the school setting.   Unknown Speaker  6:25   I never thought about it.   Betsy Furler  6:29   That's interesting. So after high school, what did you do?   Liz de la Torre  6:32   So I went to college, um, high school was a blow off. It was a party time for me. And so when my parents were moving from San Antonio, they both retired when I graduated. And oddly enough, they were moving from San Antonio to Houston to retire. Um, so I wanted to stay in San Antonio because I had just gotten a new little boyfriend and all that good stuff. So my main focus, my main thing is I told my dad, I want to go to college. And he looked at me like, it was extremely demeaning. And he said to me, You need to marry one of our rich friend sons. Why would you go to school, college after high school? And I was like, because, you know, high school to me, a C and A d when I got in high school, that was great. I was passing   Unknown Speaker  7:21   too bad. Right? Right. So   Liz de la Torre  7:23   he looked at me and he said, Okay, I'm gonna let you stay. one semester. What do you want to be? A nurse just popped into my head, and I said, and he said, a nurse, you want to be a nurse? I said, Yeah, I want to be a nurse. So he said, Okay, one semester, we're gonna see how it goes. So he got we got an apartment. I had a car, paid for my school. Dean's list for five semesters.   Betsy Furler  7:55   Wow. Where did you go to nursing school.   Liz de la Torre  7:58   I went to see Antonio College for the first two semesters because I think he wanted to see if his money was gonna be spent or not. And then I went to UTSA. And so, at the end of that, it was time it was gonna be time to go into nursing school because I'd gotten all my, you know, I gotten all my academics and stuff down. And so he and my mother came down. And this is a this is about when I went to and I got diagnosed. And they asked me, my dad asked me, so do you like your apartment? And I was like, Yes. Do you like your car? Well, yes. And finally, he looked at me like I was some kind of dumbbell. And he said, Do you like to eat? I said, Well, yeah, of course I do. And he said, then you're gonna have to get a job. Like, get a job for why he said, Well, if you want to stay in Houston, San Antonio, you're gonna have to pay for all your stuff. Or you can come to Houston. And I was like, Are you serious? He said I am. So I had to pack up and I came to Houston and during a physical for enlisted in a during a physical for nursing school. That's when it came up about because I started noticing in math and statistics I could memorize, like series of numbers and keep it. Uh huh. And it was like, What do you call it when you can? Like photographic memory, I can do it. My son can do it, oddly enough, too. But it was eat. That's what a nursing school was extremely easy because I could read the testing material the night before, go to sleep. Wake up and I could see the page. So it was like, great. There it is. But they did diagnose me at the time. It was something before Adderall that they gave me. I forgot what it was. But it started making me calm down. But what it really did is it made me be able to put things like in sequences so I could understand stuff.   Betsy Furler  10:12   I went through I said, I said before you were kind of you had a great memory so you're able to just regurgit

For All Abilities – The Podcast  Henry Furler Part Two    For this episode of For All Abilities: The Podcast, I got to talk with one of my very favorite people. I interviewed my son, Henry Furler! Henry and I talk about the life threatening medical problems (including epilepsy, dysautonomia, autoimmune disease, autoimmune encephalitis) that he has faced throughout his life and how he has succeeded despite all the challenges.    To connect with Henry, please follow him on LinkedIn (Henry Furler) or email him at jhenryfurler@gmail.com.    Please subscribe to For All Abilities – The Podcast! Please follow me on Instagram @forallabilities, LinkedIn (Betsy Furler) and on Facebook (For All Abilities). Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Transcription by Otter.ai   Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world.   Henry Furler  1:17   I'm so glad to be here again. So when we left off, we were talking about middle school and then High School is when it really got interesting, right? Yes, I'm in ninth grade. For the first semester. I was completely, I was completely homebound. And   that would have been 11th grade. No, it was 10th grade Dengue  Oh, I think it was in 2008 it might be 11th grade because Henry's usually right about dates. So, okay, anyway, so I'll start at 10th grade since we're mentioning that. Um, so in 10th grade I started at a very small private school called Xavier educational like how to me where the majority of the classes are online, but you go to a school location and they have like tutors   interact with. So okay, tell them about being Dengue So in 2015, I went on a youth group trip and to Port Aransas, Texas, and a week later   National Institutes of Health on tropical diseases and specifically, I think the West Nile and Dengue so he had a presumptive diagnosis of dengue fever, with all the symptoms and you're right that after   Betsy Furler  9:38   So we forgot Henry also to tell them that while all this was going on, you were very active in Boy Scouts. And you're also very active in the children's advisory board at Texas Children's so wanted to tell them a little bit about Boy Scouts because you had finished your Eagle before he had dengue   Henry Furler  9:56   Let me finish with the dengue first   Okay.   to the National Institutes of Health because the disease had finished its progression and she couldn't report it it was tested too late yes um, and dengue of the   Betsy Furler  10:33   pretty much for your lifetime after you get them dengue is one of those and that will come up later. And he also during the dengue he started having a lot a lot of severe dizzy spells and heart rate variations and breathing variations and was ultimately diagnosed with dysautonomia, so tell them a little bit about your extracurricular activities since your life wasn't awesome.   Henry Furler  11:00   In the hospital, it seemed like it was. So a few years before I got dengue I became an Eagle Scout. Through the Boy Scouts of America, I built a cell phone charging station for the emergency Center at Texas Children's Hospital. And then I was on the children's advisory board at Texas Children's Hospital, which helped a lot with making the hospital more family pay family. Patient Centered Care is what they call it.   Betsy Furler  16:01   All through your life really, although you've been really medically complex and sick so much, but the good thing about you, Henry is, if you're not in the hospital, you're pretty much living life as quote unquote normal. So, maybe dengue  was awful, and then you develop the dysautonomia after it. And then two years ago, almost in November, on November on November of 2018,   So much for being on my podcast for two episodes. Yes, I am glad that I got to share my story with all of your listeners. And if somebody wants to reach out to you to get more information or find out more about you, how can they find you? My email again is jhenryfurler@gmail.com. Thank you for being here, Henry. I love you so much. I'm so proud of you. I love you too. So, thanks for listening to my part two of my interview with my son Henry. And please like rate review, and subscribe and all of those things to my podcast on whatever podcast you're listening to this on. Please share the podcast and please follow me, Betsy Furler on LinkedIn and on Instagram at for all abilities on Facebook for all abilities, Twitter.   Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to for all abilities the podcast. This is your host Betsy Furler. And today we are talking about talking with someone who has succeeded so exceptionally despite a lot of challenges. Frequently we talk to people with different types of neurodiversity like autism, ADHD, dyslexia and learning differences or with people with physical challenges, and today I am talking to my son for part two His medical story and medical challenges. So part one talks about kind of birth three Middle School. And part two, we are starting with his high school years. So welcome back to the show, Henry.   Henry Furler  1:40   that was a mess.   Betsy Furler  1:42   And he had had we also forgot to say that he had a vagal nerve stimulator implanted, which is an implantable device, almost like a pacemaker for your brain, right?   Henry Furler  1:51   Yes, that within. That was at the beginning of eighth grade.   Betsy Furler  1:56   But yet your seizures persisted. It has helped over time Yours at your Caesars Caesars persisted. So for ninth grade you are home. And do you remember why what were we what we were getting ready for   Henry Furler  2:09   for that fall? I do not. We were   Betsy Furler  2:11   getting ready for the ketogenic diet. Oh, yes. So tell them about starting the ketogenic diet.   Henry Furler  2:17   So when we first decided that we were going to do the ketogenic diet, and we went to the hospital and talked to the doctors, they were adamant that I would not follow the diet completely, because I was a teenager, and they were wrong.   Betsy Furler  2:36   So I said, Henry is like the most compliant person on the face of the earth, even if he is a teenager. So why don't we just try it? So we actually changed hospitals. Remember, we had to change   Henry Furler  2:48   we moved from the Texas Children's Hospital to children's Memorial Hermann.   Betsy Furler  2:53   Yep. So we had to change. neurologists made a new neurologist and then she got him started on the diet. So tell him about that. fat.   Henry Furler  3:01   So it's an interesting diet, lots of mayonnaise, butter, olive oil, um, you have to measure all of your food in you have to weigh all of the food, and it's very time consuming. And we did it for almost five years.   Betsy Furler  3:23   So for the first like two or three months, I think I made almost all your meals. Remember, we used all those little recipes or those little things that we had to follow and measure to wait a 10th of a gram. And then you took over, learn to cook started cooking all sorts of super interesting keto things, and it did help them with it did help with your seizures after when you start the diet.   Henry Furler  3:50   Like my mom said, for the first what is it three to four months I think you have to do everything very very specific and you have to weigh everything no carbs at all. And then after that you can start transitioning into the more relaxed where you don't have to weigh anything, weigh everything, but I'm still a lot of oil and drinking olive oil, which is not the best thing to do with olive oil please   Betsy Furler  4:27   and eating Manet she got a you liked eating man a straight?   Henry Furler  4:31   Yes.   Betsy Furler  4:32   Mayonnaise is delicious and heavy cream, lots of heavy cream.   Henry Furler  4:35   Yes. But you can mix things with heavy cream. So   Betsy Furler  4:38   that's true. And so you kept on that and you did well and then in 10th grade Well, you had a couple of hospitalizations, several hospitalizations on getting the keto kind of settled in your body. Because you had refeeding syndrome. Remember, like prisoner Have war have when you're fed, again because of the effects of the keto, and then some hospitalizations for illnesses and seizures and all the regular stuff for us. And then in 10th grade, you got really, really sick. And, and tell them about that.   Unknown Speaker  5:20   So   Henry Furler  5:23   around   Or mentors that are actual teachers. I'm there to help you with all of the assignments. So the assignments are online. And for the majority of the classes and they're graded, and outside of the school, that's how   Betsy Furler  6:17   it was done then yeah, now it's a little different   Henry Furler  6:20   yet now they have actual teachers, um, and quite a few of my classes while I was there had actual teachers I'll mention that in a minute. Um, but, um, because you could work at your own pace at that school that worked very well with my medical issues at the time.   Betsy Furler  6:43   Henry didn't really like being homebound and ninth grade and being homeschooled. He was homebound through

For All Abilities – The Podcast  Henry Furler Part One    For this episode of For All Abilities: The Podcast, I got to talk with one of my very favorite people. I interviewed my son, Henry Furler! Henry and I talk about the life threatening medical problems (including epilepsy, dysautonomia, autoimmune disease, autoimmune encephalitis) that he has faced throughout his life and how he has succeeded despite all the challenges.    To connect with Henry, please follow him on LinkedIn (Henry Furler) or email him at jhenryfurler@gmail.com.    Please subscribe to For All Abilities – The Podcast! Please follow me on Instagram @forallabilities, LinkedIn (Betsy Furler) and on Facebook (For All Abilities). Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com     Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody, welcome to the for all abilities podcast. This is your host Betsy Furler. And I'm so glad you're here. This podcast talks about the amazing things people are doing with brains and bodies that may be different from the norm. Often we talk to people when they're diversity and today I have a very, very, very special guest with me. I know I always say that my guests are special and they all are but today is the most special of all. Special guests. I have my son Henry Furler. With me today. Hi, Henry. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad to be here. Henry, I want you to tell my audience about your life as a little boy. So tell us what you were like as a little boy. And we can weave in areas of your diagnosis. So, all start, I guess by telling the audience that you were sick from the moment of conception. I had a very rough pregnancy. And when you were born, you had a hard time and had a blue spell when you were about 24 hours old. Where you stopped breathing. We were still in the hospital. And you also had to be re hospitalized for three weeks because you couldn't gain weight, then you had apnea then you had seizures at about three months. And but you are an amazing, very smart baby, despite all of your medical challenges, so why don't you take it from where you remember and about three or four years old. The other thing my audience has to know is that Henry has an amazing memory. And he remembers things even from when he was really tiny. So tell the audience about what you were like as a little boy.   Henry Furler  2:26   I remember being very energetic and loving to learn new things. And I remember a lot but it's usually usually specific thing, little memories, little memories.   Betsy Furler  2:42   What were your favorite things to do when you were like really little like two to four years old.   Henry Furler  2:47   I liked to go to museums and go out to places where I could learn new things I loved watching Arthur on TV and watching other PBS Kids shows that most kids Wouldn't be watching. Um, we watched a lot of Forensic Files on Discovery Channel. A, you can explain why we watched.   Betsy Furler  3:14   We watched a lot of Forensic Files when we're in the hospital and he also loved Ancient Egypt.   Henry Furler  3:18   Yes, I did. I've loved history and social studies since I was little and that has influenced my future. career path. I'm currently getting a degree in anthropology from the University of Houston at Clear Lake.   Betsy Furler  3:35   So, um, you were in the hospital a lot, even as a very little kid. What do you remember about being in the hospital when you were little?   Henry Furler  3:45   I remember that it wasn't. It wasn't fun. But, um, the nurses and the people who would come to visit me tried to make it more interesting and I remember being in the hospital as a, I guess you could describe it as more of a joyous experience. I remember when I was little, I had one at one point I had an ID in my foot. And I would be taken around in a little wagon and we would go around the hospital and they had little play areas. And, um, I remember at one point, my dad brought window markers to the hospital, and we would draw on the windows in my room and have the, the window that went out to the hallway.   Betsy Furler  4:40   So a lot of people think kids are really scared in the hospital, but you were usually not scared there when you were little.   Henry Furler  4:46   No, I've had a lot of experiences in the hospital and even when I was little. If kids have been in the hospital a lot, they may still be scared of the doctors in the hospital, but I was never scared of the hospital.   Betsy Furler  5:02   And you may not remember but I started teaching you when you were two to know which medications you were supposed to be taking, and kind of what they looked like and what the names were. So you were able to tell the nurse if they gave you the wrong medicine. So that was really different than most little tiny kids on the hospital.   Henry Furler  5:21   That's something that I still do. I always ask the nurses to show me the medicines and to show me what they brought to the room doing the ibig. Actually, I think I don't have to ask them because they always show it to me beforehand. So   Betsy Furler  5:37   So what kind of school did you go to an elementary school? A lot of people think that if you have lots and lots of seizures and other medical issues that you have academic problems. So tell my audience a little bit about your academic experience.   Henry Furler  5:50   When I was in elementary school, I'm in kindergarten, I went to a normal school. It wasn't Specifically gifted and talented but I was classified as gifted and talented there. And then starting in first grade, I went to a gifted and talented and IB primary years program, school that was very diverse and taught about a lot of different things that focused on how we can connect things in the world. And I feel like my education there was more.   I'm trying to think of how to explain it. I'm   thorough, even though we didn't focus on specific, fixed subjects all the time. So the things that we would focus on would be themes or topics, and we would focus on those for a few weeks. And the normal subjects like math, science, social studies, and English would be woven in to that. So there was no like math time or science time, there was there were themes and we would weave those subjects into that.   Betsy Furler  7:12   So in elementary school, you may not know this, but you were classified as special ed as well as gifted and talented, near classified as special ed because of your, your medical issues. So tell the audience what kind of accommodations you got in elementary school, if you remember.   Henry Furler  7:29   I don't really remember you thinking any accommodations other than the extended testing time for standardized tests. I don't even know if I had that in elementary school.   Betsy Furler  7:40   You did, but you didn't really need it. But what you needed was small group testing, more so if you had a seizure or something happened that you didn't disrupt a whole group of kids and you only disrupted a few kids, so it was easier for them to manage. You also had extended time for assignments and preferential seating although I don't know that you really Even needed that our class our class say   Henry Furler  8:04   that our classes were very small anyway, the largest class I remember having an elementary school, I think was maybe 22 students, which is much smaller than a lot of elementary school classes these days, which can go up to 3032, or maybe more, which is, I think, is   Betsy Furler  8:25   very big for an elementary school class. So you continue to have seizures and had some really severe allergies that caused you to go into anaphylaxis. And so, one time he had to have an ambulatory ECG, which to my audience, that means it's a test that looks at your brainwaves, and they put on all the electrodes on your head and if it's ambulatory, it means walking around. So it's something that you can go about your daily life with. Now, most people when they do ambulatory, Eg they just stay at home. But did you stay at home with your ambulatory ECG?   Henry Furler  9:03   No, I was in second grade and I went to school every day that I have the ambulatory ECG on. A lot of the kids were actually very intrigued by the ambulatory ECG, they didn't make fun of me or anything. My school was very accepting of every pretty much everything they would ask me and I would explain to them that it was looking at my brain and how my brain was working.   Betsy Furler  9:31   Do you remember that every year we talk to your class about your medical problems? I do. Um,   Henry Furler  9:40   it got a lot more complicated to explain those things to the class as as time progressed, because we would find out more and more things. And I believe we stopped doing that when I started Middle School.   Betsy Furler  9:57   And the the greatest thing about that That and why I can encourage other parents to do that is because your friends that you went to elementary school with to this day are some of your best advocates and friends and one of them even went to college with yo

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty Four - Isabelle Stahrfisher - Surviving and Thriving with Mitochondrial Myopathy    In this episode, I interview Isabelle Stahrfisher- recent college graduate and graduate school student. On the podcast, Isabelle and I discuss her early years with a serious chronic illness (mitochondrial myopathy), her strengths and interests and her college experience. We also discuss her dreams for future employment.  To connect with Isabelle, please go to her Facebook page (Isabelle Stahrfisher) or e-mail her at i.stahrfisher@tcu.edu.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai     Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody, welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This podcast is all about talking to people with different types of nerve diversity and other disabilities who are doing great things in this world. And today I have a special guest and her name is Isabel Starr Fisher and I've known about Isabel for almost her whole life. I think her mom and I met when she was three years old. She's around the same age as my son Henry. So I'm really excited that she was willing to be on the podcast today. Welcome, Isabel. Hi.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  1:11   I'm so excited to be here.   Betsy Furler  1:13   Awesome. If you could just introduce yourself and tell my audience a little bit about what you're doing currently.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  1:19   Okay, um, well, I am a recent 2020 graduate, I graduated with my degree in communication and my minor in creative writing. And I have a physical disability, mitochondrial disease. I'm a ambulatory wheelchair user and I have chronic illness and all that extra good stuff. So, in college, I focused a lot of my research in my writing about people with disabilities, and I'm about to start my graduate program with a focus in telling people disability stories. Wow, that's awesome.   Betsy Furler  2:00   Well, I'm so excited you're here. And I would love for you to tell my audience about what you were like as a little girl. I think you were diagnosed fairly young in life. So you may not remember that, but kind of what were you like, what was school like in those early years for you?   Isabelle Stahrfisher  2:17   So when I was little, like you said, I was diagnosed really young, so I really don't remember the pre diagnosis period. But my kind of story is actually kind of weird because I was born really sick, which then helps me get a diagnosis, which then helped my siblings get a diagnosis, and then we all got treatment. We kind of stabilized. So yes, we had to do feeding pumps at night and we had to do some different treatments, but we're very active. I did competitive dance for several years. And we did bowling. We are homeschool to just try to limit interaction with others when it came to getting second stuff, but other than that, we lived pretty normal lives. And all three of us had it. So it didn't really feel any different to me. And so I just remember the first time I went to MBA camp, and that's kind of the first time I really started realizing that, like, yes, my whole family's weird, and this is kind of my normal, but also it's other people's normal. They have slightly different versions. And I remember being seven years old and my parents sitting down at the table at Camp like okay, this is how you say, mitochondrial myopathy, and I'm just struggling through that word. Um, but yeah, that was really the first time I was kind of realized, I guess that other people have disabilities that are similar but also not similar. And we all kind of experience it in different ways. And that was really exciting for me.   Betsy Furler  4:04   Yeah campus so wonderful. Henry loved going to camp as well. He left the camp. And but it is amazing that a seven year old can even like know the word mitochondrial, because most adults don't even know that word.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  4:21   So yeah.   But my mom will talk about it. And I was generally just like decided the three of us also the oldest. So like, I had the responsibility of being the oldest and then I didn't have a lot of energy to do anything else. So we'll talk about stories, especially my sister was always getting into trouble and stuff. And I'm like, Well, where's my trouble stories and my mom's like, you're spending all your energy trying to make sure that your sister didn't kill herself doing something stupid. So, um, but yeah, that was kind of my childhood. And I really took to Reading and things that I could do on my downtime that preserved my energy for other things like dance that I really cared about.   Betsy Furler  5:09   Well, and I think if I remember correctly, you had a lot of hospitalizations when you were super little, but then not so many. When you were probably the ages that you remember.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  5:20   Yeah. I had a few hospitalizations, for surgeries. I remember the surgeries more than I remember being sick. And several ER visits. But I think in my memory, my siblings had more hospital visits for being sick and like being admitted, then I do in my, my memory period. Yeah, I know that several early on.   Betsy Furler  5:45   So then when you once you graduated from high school, and as you said, you were homeschooled. And so when you went off to college, that was really your first time to be in a, I guess organized school in a traditional school environment. I guess I should call it   Isabelle Stahrfisher  6:00   I'm kind of I did co ops. And so I had, I took classes at different places. And they were generally taught by college professors were also parents. So it was kind of like a school system. I went to university model school my senior year, and took a couple math classes. They're so similar. But yeah, college is the first time that I had, like, a strict system, which was really different. And then also being away from my family for the first time was really different. And then I had a whole bunch of health issues that first year that made it really difficult. And so that it's really interesting to me that like that first year, I think of this like the first year, or I'm trying to figure out independence, but it wasn't until I transferred back home because of my health issues, that I started learning what true independence was and that was when I was having to Be more dependent on my family than I ever wanted to be making my own decisions while at home. And I right now, even though my health issues continue to kind of get worse, I feel the most independent that I've ever done. I've got really strict boundaries for the most part with my family when they helped me and like, if I'm in my wheelchair, I need help being pushed like, you can't push in places that I don't want to go. That's not okay. And having those discussions about boundaries is something that I've learned is really important in maintaining my independence.   Betsy Furler  7:37   Yeah, that is that's really important, especially with sibling relationships. That's a really, that's so important. So when did you did you have accommodations when you went off to college? Did they provide accommodations and what kind of accommodations Did you need academically or living accommodation, you know, accommodations to your living question.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  8:01   So I didn't become a wheelchair user until 2017. So my first year, I got accommodations, but they were, I was allowed to use a computer for note taking. I think if I remember correctly, I had professors who wouldn't let me do that.   And then I also was allowed.   extended time, maybe I just know I had a whole list of accommodations. And then several professors who wouldn't give me the accommodations   Unknown Speaker  8:33   as well.   Isabelle Stahrfisher  8:34   Yeah, super frustrating I had, or at least not, it wasn't that they wouldn't give me the accommodations, they just would like, Okay, well, if you're going to use a computer, then you have to sit here and it has to be in the front of the room, or it has to be in the back of the room and it has to do this and you have to do that and I really don't trust you and I really don't trust that you're not going to be doing other things which is really frustrating. As I was trying to get all this stuff figured out so I'm trying to learn when and how I was going to take notes really difficult process and really frustrating because I didn't have the energy to fight them. And I didn't want to fight them I was this freshmen kid was like, I don't know how to fight my professor for accommodations when they're really not inclined to give it to me and the school didn't have the, the system to really fight for me either. So it was just a really frustrating process that I kind of learned how to accommodate for myself. Whenever   Betsy Furler  9:41   that's when it's I think there is often a problem with accommodations is even if a school will say like, here's your list of accommodations frequently, it's too many. You know, like it's a bunch of accomm

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty Three - Becky Kekula - DisabilityIN/Advocating for Others and Yourself Part Two   In this episode, I interview Becky Kekula of DisabilityIN. On the podcast, Becky continues talking life as a Little Person. We discuss her transition from a career in the film/tv industry into her work at DisabilityIN and the importance of advocacy.  To connect with Becky, please follow her  on LinkedIn (Becky Kekula) and visit her website at http://www.beckymotivates.com.     Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai       Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcasts. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world.   Unknown Speaker  0:33   Hi, everybody, welcome back to for all abilities the podcast. Today we're going to have the second part of my interview with Becky Kekla. Ireally hope I'm pronouncing her name right. That's so hard for me. Her main name is current so you may know her as Becky Curran. She currently works for disability in but she has has had such an amazing   Betsy Furler  0:59   roller coaster career and just twists and turns, and she's a little person. And when we last left off, if you didn't listen to the other episode, you really should go back and listen to that. But when we left off and the first episode with her, she was still in college, she was about to graduate and she had gotten this awesome opportunity to be a stand in for an actor in a film that was being filmed in her college town. And unfortunately, the taping the filming of it conflicted with her college schedule, so she had to turn down that great opportunity, but it has led her to so many more interesting things. So please listen to Becky and I talking about her career and her life and how she has become such an advocate for people with all types of disabilities.   Becky Kekula  1:55   And then after the summer,   Unknown Speaker  1:57   I   Becky Kekula  2:00   While in college I haven't really mentioned it yet, I decided that I wanted to learn more about being a part of the little people community. It was up until college that I really didn't have any other friends who were little people other than maybe some people we would see at the doctor every year. It wasn't very often where we'd see the same people every year. But if we got along with them, maybe we'd stay in touch as pen pals. But I was not really close to the community. And I think once my friends in high school started dating, the later years after my back surgery, and even in college, watching a lot of people dating and not really finding my place of where I fit in in those scenarios. I was convinced to go to a little people convention that was happening in the Boston area in 2003. And I ended up meeting friends from all over the country and continue to meet people from   All over the world. I just like in any environment, you filter through those who you have similar values to and then there could be some that you have nothing in common with. But I had over the years while I was in college, gotten very close to a tight knit group of people who lived in Southern California. And I thought, Okay, this ties in nicely to my desire to work in the film industry. So while I was finishing the casting opportunity for the film underdog, I was networking out in out in Los Angeles, just remotely trying to figure out how to get myself out there, where I could really be in the deep parts of the industry. And one of my friends, he had a talent manager, he was an actor. He asked me if I wanted to come work with her and I thought, great, I'll go give it a try. Let's Let's do this. I learned about casting this summer. Now. When about talent management. And she also happens to be another little person. And I got out to LA, my parents, they wanted to support me as best they could. They made sure that before I moved to Los Angeles, I had a job and a place to live set up, because they weren't going to support me if I just was going out there without an agenda. So we have the job. I stayed with friends for a while, thought everything was set up. And the minute I got to LA, I found out that that job opportunity was not there. Wow, that I was going to have to start the search. on my own. I luckily had, I had already done some networking. I was networking with people who were alumni of Providence college who lives out in Los Angeles, and just anyone who lived out there and even had a connection to marketing in general, even if it wasn't film industry related. So I To take a bunch of coffee meetings, I ended up picking up a Hollywood creative directory where they had names and addresses of places. And I just started sending out resumes like crazy. I sent out 1000 resumes, and then went on 100 interviews, sometimes up to four interviews a day. And back to that constructive feedback piece. I wish if I went back to that time in my life, that people were more willing to tell me if I was making mistakes in the way that I interviewed. Or, of course, after four interviews a day I had to be exhausted by that fourth interview. And it just felt like kind of going through the motions without really getting any feedback. Other than we're going to hire internally, we're going into a different direction with this position. There was nothing ever of like you want to do this differently next time. So after about four months, I decided to go with some tech placement agencies, so I could have an honest conversation with these recruiters. And then they could pitch me to just go show up at a job. And that ultimately ended up being the best strategy because people couldn't tell me that I can't show up for the job that I'm told to show up for. Because the recruiter would be able to stand up for me and say, You have no real reason to tell them to go home.   Betsy Furler  6:27   Right, right. Wow. It was a long process and you had so much work experience before you even graduated from   Becky Kekula  6:37   Glee that's the thing I had to at least been qualified. I wasn't applying for like high level jobs. This these were very much entry level. You must have a few internship experiences under your belt, not anything that was like, way above like I was expecting this huge position.   Unknown Speaker  6:56   Right? Right.   Betsy Furler  6:59   So So what did you do after that? And then how did you finally get to disability em?   Becky Kekula  7:08   So, so the reason why I do the work that I do now is because I don't want people to go through what I went through.   Unknown Speaker  7:15   I,   Becky Kekula  7:16   after about three temporary job assignments, I was at the Hallmark Channel for about a month, I worked at this place called trailer park where they make trailers for movies. for about three days, it was around the holiday season. So it wasn't really a specific job other than a gifting because everyone loves giving gifts to all their clients for the holidays. And at that, so this was the end of 2006. And I still didn't have anything secured and it was the middle of January that I finally showed up for my first day at Creative Artists Agency, a talent agency where I ended up working for five years, but it took seven months for me to become a full time employee I was on a temporary employee Up until those seven months and then finally felt like I made my mark to at least have my foot in the door out. After having to say okay, I need benefits like what's happening I'm showing up to work every day it was still a full time opportunity 97 five days a week, but it took a lot of proven myself to get that permanent position. And most assistant stay at an agency for about a year. They don't want to be an agent, they move on. But I just was holding on really tight to that employment opportunity for five years because I didn't know how hard it was going to be to find that next opportunity. And I was in the I started in that entertainment marketing department and then moved over the comedy touring department. And it was only because the marketing department was shifting, and I was kind of at risk if I chose to stay there, just because of purely numbers. It was just people were being moved around. So one of my bosses I had worked for two people. Once I became permanent, I was working for two people. And he brought me to the music department. And then I found out about the comedy department. And it reminded me of the work I did at allied where I went to the movie screenings and filled out what people were reacting to. I had the opportunity to go to comedy clubs, like sometimes I would go to four shows a night, where I would write notes. And these were shows that the agents couldn't get to. But they would be able to gather these notes and decide if they wanted to represent any of the talent that they haven't seen yet, so that they could ask me follow up questions. If there were people I thought were really talented. And once a position became available in that department, I was up for it since I'd been working really hard to contribute up until that point. And while I was in that department, I I enjoyed it. It was fun. To get gain an eye for talent, but I think I just decided after I got to that almost fifth year that being an agen

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty Two - Becky Kekula - DisabilityIN/Advocating for Others and Yourself Part One    In this episode, I interview Becky Kekula of DisabilityIN. On the podcast, Becky talks about her early years as a Little Person and her education and career were affected. We discuss her early career in the film/tv industry and the importance of advocacy.  To connect with Becky, please follow her  on LinkedIn (Becky Kekula) and visit her website at http://www.beckymotivates.com.     Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai   Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody, welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And I'm so excited that you're here along with my special guest, Becky kulula, which I hope I said that correctly. Becky is was introduced to me by a friend and the the diversity and inclusion space. And I'm so excited to have you here. So Becky, why don't you make the Yeah, Tommy if I mispronounced your name and then introduce yourself to my audience.   Becky Kekula  1:04   My last name is Kekula. I was recently married within the past year. And my former last name is Curran. And one of the reasons I bring that up is because I started my speaking career under Becky Curran and just recently added the kukula. So no worries on that piece. And I just wanted to say that I'm excited to be here, I identify as a person with dwarfism, person with a physical difference, okay to call me a little person, a Gore. also identify as being someone who's proud to be part of the disability community. And in my current role, I work as the director of the disability Quality Index at disability in a nonprofit that helps business advanced disability inclusion. We're all on a mission to reduce the unemployment rate. of people with disabilities in this country and in the world in order to make people more people feel empowered and independent, and happy to have a place in this world when it comes to employment.   Betsy Furler  2:14   Awesome. And normally I interview people with neuro diversity, which you don't fit into that category. But when I met you and talk to you, I thought you would be really interesting to have on the podcast because the of the career path that you've kind of been on. And but let's start with what were you like as a little girl growing up going to school? Normally people talk about their diagnosis, but I guess you can talk about that, too. You. You may not have memory of that, but I'm sure you know, you've heard the story.   Becky Kekula  2:45   Yes, definitely. So 80% of people with dwarfism are born to appetite parents and that includes myself. When I was born in 1984. My parents had no clue what it meant to have a child dwarfism. And the only reason they were actually able to find out that I had dwarfism was because there was someone in the delivery room a medical professional, who had seen another person with dwarfism, more specifically 100 plastic dwarfism, which is the type of dwarfism that I have being born in that hospital. It's very common for a lot of people with dwarfism, since they're over 400 types of dwarfism to not even have a diagnosis when they leave the hospital after they're born. So they were fortunate to have that scenario where they could at least identify what my condition was. But they also found out that it was very possible I wouldn't make it through my first night that I was having breathing difficulties related to sleep apnea, which is common among people with dwarfism. And there were some issues that maybe they thought I had that didn't even seem related to dwarfism, but here I am. 36 years. Later still alive. And that was just the beginning of their journey really not knowing what that meant. And I know you mentioned how you do work to advocate and speak on behalf of the neuro diverse community. And although I don't identify as such, people often get people with dwarfism mistaken with certain communities because of our height. They assume as adults, we still should be talked to as children. And it's really just lack of the unknown lack of previous exposure, and figuring out where to meet us. So a few days after I was born, my parents were released from the hospital, but they knew that they had a long journey ahead of them, and it was recommended to them to go meet with the geneticists, and they made an appointment and they got to the office where the geneticists worked, and they met with the receptionist and asked for directions on how to get to the gym. This office, and the receptionist immediately told them to follow the signs that say birth defects, and then go into the elevator that says birth defect floor, and then follow the hallway to see another sign that says birth defects. And then the genetic counselor will be waiting for them there. And that was something that really didn't settle well with my parents. So they decided that maybe it was time to write a letter to the hospital and let them know that there are a lot of new families who have found out that their child has some sort of difference. And it is not really fair for them to be told that their child has birth defects when they're learning to figure out how to find beauty within the difference that their child may have. Unfortunately, that hospital did change the signs to say genetics, and it matched exactly what the genetic counselor did work in genetics. And that was kind of just a testament of how I was was raised and how if they saw something that seemed off, they were going to question it and challenge societal views, and making sure that they could find a way to help me grow and thrive in this life that wasn't necessarily made for someone of my stepdaughter.   Betsy Furler  6:20   Yeah. Hi, I relate to that story so well, because my son, my 22 year old son, who we've just recently found out has a neuro autoimmune disorder, but he's 22 years of not knowing. But how his life started was, when I was six weeks pregnant. I knew I was pregnant because I'd already taken a million pregnancy test. I went to my ob and he said, I don't know why you women think you're pregnant when you're not hot. And I learned to start fighting for his life at that point. And I think parents who start on that road of advocacy really early for their And how that, that idea of I don't want my child just to survive. I want them to thrive and be the best that they can be. I, you know, I just keep hearing this, this refrain over and over and over again as I interview people. So I'm so glad you had those parents.   Becky Kekula  7:18   Exactly. And really that's what I've tried to dedicate my life to do is advocate on behalf of those potential new parents, the next generation of new parents as they find out any type of difference their newborn child may have. I would love to get to a day where people are equipped with the tools and resilience and confidence to raise their child no matter the difference. I recently spoke at a conference and someone was sharing this book about children being born with Down syndrome and it was a book Had letters from all of these people with living with down syndrome as adults, writing congratulations instead of I'm sorry, because people try to say I'm sorry. Like, we've got nothing better to say to you, and we don't know how to help you. Good luck, versus congratulations. This is what your child can accomplish and still has the potential for.   Unknown Speaker  8:26   Oh, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. But the perspective is, it makes all the difference, doesn't it?   Becky Kekula  8:32   Yeah. So my parents really just didn't have a ton of resources. Even my dad's brother worked in the medical field, and all he could offer was a brochure that he found once on dwarfism. And it took about six months for my parents to find a specialist in Baltimore, Maryland. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and they had to find a doctor eight hours away, who was hosting people with dwarfism who weren't current patience for a sleep study. It was a research project they were doing. And in order to get an appointment with him, we have to sign up for the sleep study. And we got to his office. And my parents immediately, just like showed how panicked and nervous they were, but also kind of about to feel relieved because they found the answers to what they were praying for just someone who was an expert in this area. And he had a doctor had a waiting room full of people. And he ended up calling my parents and even though these people had been waiting for hours for their appointments, he just saw their ghostly looks on their faces and said, basically, just lay it out there. What are your concerns? Let me help answer the questions you may have. And that kind of led to me being able to be patient of his and we were okay with waiting eight hours for those annual appointments. Even If we arrived for the original time, because we knew that he helped us in a very important moment when I was six months old.   Betsy Furler  10:09  

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty One - Lisa Woodruff - Organizing and ADHD Part Part   In this episode, I continue my interview with Lisa Woodruff of Organize365. On the podcast, Lisa talks about her early years with dyslexia and her incredible career helping people get organized. We discuss her books on organizing and ADHD   https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Affects-Home-Organization-Understanding/dp/B07212S4Z9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2 and her new book on mastery paper organization https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Solution-What-Shred-Taking-ebook/dp/B081M7P9C5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1 We also talk about the impact that her home organization program had made on my home and life! To connect with Lisa and to find out all about her incredible home organization program and products go to https://organize365.com.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai       Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world.   episodes, because I knew we could talk a lot and she has so many wonderful stories and things for us all to learn. So Lisa, why don't you introduce yourself to my audience again?    Lisa Woodruff  1:14   Sure. I'm Lisa Woodruff. I am the founder and creator of organized 365 out of Cincinnati, Ohio. We help women get their home and paper organized in one year with functional systems that work. I have authored a couple of books, one being how ADHD affects home organization. And my next book will be out August 4, called the paper solution.   Betsy Furler  1:35   Awesome. So we left off last time after you told my favorite story about your kitchen counters and how not being able to put your groceries on your kitchen counters ultimately led to the organization and 365 business organized 365 sorry, and business and so I wanted to start off this episode. talking a little bit about how you think the COVID stay at home safe at home and order mandate. You know, suggestion if you're in Texas   Lisa Woodruff  2:14   Anyway, let's say you're in.   Betsy Furler  2:16   Yes. And how that has affected people with especially people with ADHD but all different types of neuro diversity as far as home organization, whatever you want to talk about about it.   Lisa Woodruff  2:29   Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. I, when we first got the stay at home order, I'm in the state of Ohio. So we were one of the very first states to shut down. Our governor was very proactive, and we were very positive about that in the beginning, but as Americans, you know, like our independence over time, we weren't as excited about it. I initially thought Yay, everybody's getting sent home. Yay. This is my super bowl like put me in coach. Everybody can get organized and I totally did not anticipate how mentally exhausted It would be for us to lose all of our habits, our structures, our routines, and to be constantly mentally trying to reorient our selves to what the new normal is. I mean, like, of all the words that we have in 2020, like new normal, he thought that was going to be for the stay at home order, and then you thought that was going to be for working from home, and then you thought it was going to be for racism, and then you thought it was going to be for politics. And it just seems like we're getting whiplash. Every other week. There's a new normal every single week. And as we've opened up, all these different ways of looking at everything that we took for granted or had routines and habits in place for almost all of our routines and habits are gone, almost all of them are gone. And if you don't realize that your life is a series of the habits that you have created over time, and if you didn't purposely create them, then they just happened like too much social media time or whatever too much Netflix time or if you purposely created them, even if you purposely created them with a morning routine and affirmations and going to the gym, a lot of those even positive routines that you had in place just got thrown out the window and taken away in the blink of an eye while you're trying to make sure you still have income coming in, and you'd have enough toilet paper and oh my gosh, now I can't grocery shop where I used to grocery shop. And my cousin was telling me, she's down in Cincinnati in the city. And when she would go to the store, they were only allowed to get to milk items. Like you could get milk and cheese but then you couldn't also get butter. So I was like, Are you serious? Like that didn't happen 20 miles north where I am in Cincinnati. And so it was just constant survival like we got thrown back to we need to have the basics. We need food, we need toilet paper, we need money we need we need rent and some of us are still in those basic areas. And I just want everyone to take a deep breath and recognize that this has not stopped like the amount of change that has come to your brain has not stopped And I have been more exhausted in the last three or four months than ever. Greg and I go to bed so early, and we sleep in and we take naps. And still we are just mentally exhausted. And I know that when you sleep, I don't know who said this. But I know it's true when you sleep. Your brain makes order of the day, like literally your little cells like detox inside of your brain when you're sleeping. And the file folders of all the paper of information, your brain gets put in little file folders in your brain tries to organize what you've done during the day. And there's so much change and so little routine that your brains are just exhausted trying to figure out how to get money, get food. We don't have this. We always said, Oh, if I got sent home for an extended period of time, there are all these projects I would want to work on. I would say just a small percentage of us or even to that point yet.   Betsy Furler  5:52   Yeah, it's been really interesting. I know I've been I found it very interesting on how I have I handled this it's been hard really, really hard. Being home with everybody in the family 100% Sure. And I like I said earlier I kind of are on the other episode. I have a tendency when I'm under stress either to get super disorganized, or like ridiculously over organized. And when this first happened, I did too. I did one of my crazy things when I get super stressed as I get, I start inventory things and I don't inventory at any other time. But I enjoyed all of our food. Like, member because remember back in March, when Ohio shut down, I was like, Oh, no, Texas is shutting down. I'm better get I better get it together. Remember, back then we didn't know we knew there was a toilet paper shortage already. We didn't know what the rights was going to be like, where are we even going to go the grocery store where they're going to close the grocery stores now. Right and I inventories I have this inventory I mean it's like seven pages of everything and what shelf it's on So, like Eric will say, you know, I don't think we have Italian dressing I'm like yes we do. It's on the second shelf from the top and the pantry.   Lisa Woodruff  7:15   I did the same thing I went to the grocery store and everyone should know I don't cook like as soon as you listen to one episode of my podcast, you'll know that I don't cook. So I went to the store I bought beans and rice, like literally black beans and bags of rice. And not that I would even know how to cook this. And I said to myself, well this seems like a beans and rice moment I was ever gonna have beans or rice. This is when I would have it. Just so you know. My favorite restaurant called verse fast food never shut down. So I continue to drive there and get my onion rings. They were masks it was fine. And we continue to get takeout or Greg cooked and then the other ridiculous thing that I do every time something like this happens I did it when my dad died. I did it in 2008. As I like to think that I'm going to grow a vegetable garden, like I don't even cook but I think I'm going to grow a vegetable garden. This time instead of just starting a vegetable garden outside because it's March in Ohio, I bought one of those awesome hydroponic tower gardens like that you see at Epcot for $1,000. I made four salads I had $250 salads because like after I had like four salads I'm like I'm done with this and the whole thing died and whatever. But yeah, we just we go to this survival instinct, but yet we're not survivalists. So we do it in a weird way.   Betsy Furler  8:30   What when, when Henry had his autoimmune encephalitis and it was really really severe. Um, and my audience on is Henry's been been medically fragile his whole life but the autoimmune encephalitis was like a whole new thing and very, like awful. And you know what I did? I inventoried all my clothes. I took photos of all of them. I remember that every I don't plan it planning. It's so it's just oh my goodness. I just want   Lisa Woodruff  8:59   Can you can Troy What are you in control?   Unknown Speaker  9:01   Oh, yeah.   Betsy Furler  9:05

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Thirty - Lisa Woodruff - Organizing and ADHD Part One    In this episode, I interview Lisa Woodruff of Organize365. On the podcast, Lisa talks about her early years with dyslexia and her incredible career helping people get organized. We discuss her books on organizing and ADHD   https://www.amazon.com/ADHD-Affects-Home-Organization-Understanding/dp/B07212S4Z9/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-2 and her new book on mastery paper organization https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Solution-What-Shred-Taking-ebook/dp/B081M7P9C5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JDUKPKJ99DER&dchild=1&keywords=lisa+woodruff+books&qid=1598842017&sprefix=Lisa+wood%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1 We also talk about the impact that her home organization program had made on my home and life! To connect with Lisa and to find out all about her incredible home organization program and products go to https://organize365.com.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai   Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi everybody, this is Betsy Furler. Your host for all abilities podcast. Welcome back. And I have a seat I know I always say I have a special guest but today I have a super super super special guest. A really good friend of mine, Lisa Woodruff from organized 365 and I'm super excited that she is here to talk about ADHD and and what she does professionally which is Amazing. And I'm just thrilled that she's on my podcast. And she has a podcast of our own that I'm going to say a little bit about too after she introduces herself. So, Lisa, welcome to the for all abilities, the podcast.   Lisa Woodruff  1:15   Se thank you so much You and I started working together years ago when you were in my organized 365 community audience and I was writing the book how ADHD affects home organization. And I asked you to write the agenda in the back, which ended up being like a third of the book about how different apps and accessibility can really help people with ADHD. So I love that you were part of that first book that I had coming out and then you are helping me with ideas for promoting my next book that is coming out August 4, called the paper solution that will be published by Putnam Random House.   Betsy Furler  1:50   Yes, and I'm so excited about that book coming out and tell my listeners about your podcast really fast are your podcasts   Lisa Woodruff  1:58   so organized recently 65 has been around for almost six years has almost 8 million downloads. And in that podcast, we really unpack the difference between decluttering your home getting your home organized, and how that leads to increased productivity and how the majority of the work that actually gets done and getting your home and your life organized starts with your mindset and your thoughts first.   Betsy Furler  2:20   Yes, we both you and I definitely agree on mindset. Yeah, the things I've worked on mindset. And I have to tell my listeners, how we met because it's an unusual story. So well, kind of unusual, I guess. Um, I think it's unusual. So I had decided I was going to organize my house and I've always been fairly organized. But you know, as we all have things, you know, life happens and things get disorganized. So I've loved podcasts for years, and I decided to start listening to podcasts on organization on home organization. So I listened to a bunch of podcasts and I found yours and I loved it and after I've listened to To like 10 episodes in a row, I thought, I have to be friends with this woman, she, I got to meet her, I've got to meet her in person, she's got to be my friend. And so I continued listening and, you know, following your system and getting my house totally organized, which by the way, it's still organized because I still follow your system. And so if I need to touch up a little thing, it's like a 15 or 20 minute thing. It's not a days and days and weeks and weeks. So then fast forward, I don't know, maybe a year after that, or so. And you were writing your ADHD book and found out that I do, I'm an expert in the use of apps and people with all sorts of different disabilities. And so you called me and we started working on that together and then we ended up going to a conference and actually being roommates and within Think about six hours of snowing each other in part in person. I was at the time thinking about launching my other podcast, your app lady that I don't record anymore, but it's still available. And a lot of other people have told me I shouldn't record a pot do a podcast and you're like, Betsy, do the podcast, you can talk. You'll be fine. And you're totally right. podcasts are a piece of cake for me. So anyway, that's how we met and I'm so glad that I manifested our friendship.   Lisa Woodruff  4:29   Yeah, you totally did. You totally did. And I love it. You're just such a creative person. You have so many ideas. You're always going a million miles an hour, as am I. And our conversations are so diverse and so eclectic. And we just get each other going off in so many different directions. It's so much fun.   Betsy Furler  4:47   Wait, dad, and so I, I am so to my listeners. This is going to be a two part episode maybe three. And depending how long Lisa and I talk, we're talking. We're gonna talk way more than three 30 minutes for the podcast. So, um, okay, so back to the back to the purpose of the podcast and tell my listeners about what you were like as a little girl what your childhood was like.   Lisa Woodruff  5:14   So I'm an extrovert, but I grew up kind of out in the country and there were 72 houses on the street and only two other families had children and they were boys, which was boring as a girl. And I had one younger sister and the reason I knew there were 72 houses was because I counted them. And I made a newsletter that I sent out to everyone in our neighborhood, and I also coordinated our neighborhood block party. So I was always very industrious. I'm a fourth generation female college graduate, all of my, the women on my mother's side of the family have all owned their own businesses. My great grandmother actually had four businesses in the 30s, which is amazing, like a floral shop and restaurant like, like big businesses, not just, you know, little businesses. And so I grew up with entrepreneurs. And as an extrovert without a lot of people to talk to I just basically talked to myself in my head and I created up all kinds of fantastic fun things to do. I created an invisible games for my sister and I were I named all of the different paths through our yard as if they were different streets in our city. And we would ride our bikes as if they were cars, and we used our baby dolls as if they were our children. And I called our bedrooms or mini apartments, and then we would meet at the cafe, which was that the kitchen and I was just coming up with all these unique ways for us to entertain ourselves. I think now as we're in the global pandemic, I often drawn those ideas to share with the kids that listen to the organized 365 podcast of ways to let your imagination you know, keep you company here in this safe at home environment during the pandemic were so much more creative than we realize we can be so that's the kind of child I was I was always creating new adventures and new things and I was able to play question At least even though as an extrovert, I was able to play quietly by rearranging my bedroom or reorganizing something somewhere else in the house or getting my sister to create an imaginary store with me. I did a lot of babysitting, and I would create imagination games with the kids that I babysat for. So, I was always busy doing something, but I would often clean up my mess is behind me. So it didn't seem that I was as scattered as maybe I was.   Unknown Speaker  7:26   And how did you do in school?   Lisa Woodruff  7:30   I did. Okay, I love learning. I still love learning. I was the one that always asked a question. If you're like, oh, if she would stop asking questions in class, that was me. I was always asking questions. I always wanted more knowledge. But I always had this floating. See, so my mom was a straight A student. She's a perfectionist, and I was not I always had a floating see and what that meant was, it was never in math, but it might be in English or history or science. And I would get a C on my report card and science and then I would try w hardest sciences and all sudden next semester, I would have seen history and then I tried doubly hard and history and then all of a sudden I'd have a C in some other class like I could never get all A's and B's, I always had this floating C. And it didn't really bother me because I'm not a perfectionist. And I knew I knew the information. But it really bothered my parents that my grade card did not reflect the intellect they thought that I had. And by my junior year in high school, I was taking a class. And I was raised Catholic. So I was in a Catholic High

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Twenty Nine - Michael Newman - Moving from College to Employment with Autism and Bipolar Disorder.   In this episode, I interview Michael Newman - college student . On the last podcast, I interviewed Michael's mom, Kristine. She and I discuss Michael's early years, his strengths and his college experience. On this episode, Michael and I discuss his view of his early years and his plan for employment. We also discuss the accommodations that may help him when he gets a job.  To connect with Michael, please email him at jankdn@gmail.com.    Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai           Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast, and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. Today we're talking with a special guest. We're talking with Michael and his mom. Christine was on the podcast last week talking about him and his brother. But I thought it would be really fun to talk to Michael himself and get his views on employment and school and his own neurodiversity. So Michael, welcome to for liabilities a podcast. Thank you for having me. Yes, thank you so much for being here and I would love for you just to introduce yourself really quickly to my listeners.   Michael Newman  1:13   Okay. Um, my name is Michael Newman. I'm 23 years old, and I've been diagnosed with autistic tendencies and bipolar disorder.   My bipolar starts showing up around second grade.   My autistic tendencies didn't show up until much later than that. But due to the severity of bipolar I had I don't remember much from elementary school, there was a bunch of memory loss from that. So I'll just say what I can.   Betsy Furler  1:50   Awesome. So and as you know, so to my listeners, Michael, this is a second time Michael has been nice enough to let me interview him because the first time I had some audio parts So we're having to do a repeat. And so Michael, I'm so glad you're willing to do this. So so you already know the question. So the first one is, what were you like as a little boy? So I know you had said that you had some memory loss and you don't remember a lot. But did you enjoy Elementary School in middle school?   Michael Newman  2:20   Um, I enjoyed middle school, but elementary school not so much. The main problem that we had was that bipolar was running rampant while we're trying to find the right medication. Um, it made bipolar worse until we finally found out what I needed around fifth grade. I'm probably one of the sizings I remember that was actually very clear. For me remembering is my mom telling me that this was the happiest she'd ever seen me in the past couple of years. By polar There was major ups and downs there. I've ended up doing was called crash where if you don't know what that is, it's a it's an aftermath to bipolar. Where after an episode I get really tired. I can't think and I'm really depressed   hmm that made school very difficult.   Betsy Furler  3:24   Yeah, I bet and you said you liked once you got your medication kind of straightened out that made school better, I'm sure made everything better made life better. When you were in middle school, did you have any hobbies or extracurricular activities that you did?   Michael Newman  3:41   Well, the main thing that I enjoy doing is art. I've done pretty much every medium you could probably think of. But starting in middle school, I started doing other things sixth grade, I started doing songwriting. And then starting in eighth grade, I began to write stories.   Betsy Furler  4:02   That's awesome. Yeah. So, um, a little bit later, we're going to kind of talk about your strengths around employment. So then, so then you went off to high school. And was high school similar to middle school, or Were there any differences? did things get better or worse?   Michael Newman  4:18   Things got a lot better.   In high school, I'd say the issues stopped at school around eighth grade. I would have probably two episodes that were really bad at school until the fifth grade, but just for middle school, but things felt like as a lot more control afterwards. I didn't have any problems at school since then.   Betsy Furler  4:48   That's awesome. And now you're, you're in college and you're going to be finishing up in about a year. Is that correct?   Michael Newman  4:54   I'm going to be finishing at the end of this year.   Betsy Furler  4:57   Oh, okay. So it's just one more semester.   Michael Newman  5:00   After two more because I'm doing the summer semesters and have one more semester left.   Betsy Furler  5:06   Okay. And then fall semester as well. Yes. Awesome. So and what is your major?   Michael Newman  5:14   Um, general business? I've changed my name my major a couple of times. The first one I did graphics design for my major, which that only last fall semester because I was informed here needs Texas that job description is pretty hard to find. And then I changed it to general size and I'm doing general business.   Betsy Furler  5:42   Yeah, I think that'll open up some more business opportunities, job opportunities for you. And what is your favorite thing about being in college Ben?   Michael Newman  5:52   Um, well, they have. I don't live on campus but I drive up there. They have a game room actually. And my favorite thing to do the game are you playing playing ping pong with friends and actually taught other people how to play.   Betsy Furler  6:13   Oh, that's amazing. That's, that's so much fun. And are you a video gamer as well?   Michael Newman  6:19   Yes, I am. I've played a lot of your games, but that's not really the main thing I do much anymore.   Betsy Furler  6:27   Oh, good. Yeah. And ping pong is a super active sport. It's like it's always amazing when I see people play ping pong, how much movement they do. Yeah, hand eye coordination and mood and physical movement   Michael Newman  6:39   is a lot more than just involved back and forth.   Betsy Furler  6:44   Yeah, yeah, strategy and everything else involved in that. And so as you get ready to graduate, I know you and your mom have been talking a lot about what kind of job you might want. So what have y'all been thinking about?   Michael Newman  7:01   She thinks the best job with me would probably be a desk job routine as a big thing for me if like a sum, if I get a job description, but then things are just like I get a curveball with an assignment. Things change I start getting a little confused and worked up. I get a little stressed out.   Betsy Furler  7:28   So you need as well as we're just kind of talking about jobs. We'll talk about the job accommodations too. So you need clear direction, right? Yes. Excuse me like so you like people to tell you like this is what I expect from you. And what about structure around schedule?   Michael Newman  7:49   I'm really when it comes to schedule, I'm very flexible as if someone needs me to work someday I'll just go work there no questions asked.   Betsy Furler  8:00   Okay, and and then I think we talked when we were talking before about one of the accommodations you might need is a little bit of flexibility on missing work occasionally, if you have a crash,   Michael Newman  8:13   yes. And   Unknown Speaker  8:18   oh, god,   Michael Newman  8:19   oh, there was another accommodation that we had talked about. And that accommodation was when I get stressed out, I need like a moment to step back and just sort things out, kind of calm down, get things together, before you start working again.   Betsy Furler  8:42   Yes, that's right. And I had said, I like 15 minutes and you said no more like five minutes, right?   Michael Newman  8:47   So five tops.   Betsy Furler  8:49   Yeah, not even a big deal. And what about I don't think I asked you before but what about what is your How do you like to learn new information? Do you like to read video To read watch a video here something, how to you are hands on learning? What do you think your best learning style is?   Michael Newman  9:10   hands on learning would probably be the best.   Betsy Furler  9:13   Okay, yeah, like going through so, yeah. So as we were, you know, on our last conversation we were talking about, you know, it's, you really don't need that many accommodations. And I think one of the things I was excited about having you on the podcast to talk about was the fact that someone could hire you, you would be a really loyal employee. And, and while you have a disability, you really need only about four things three or four accommodations that really aren't expensive or a big deal to implement because, you know, to have a little flexibility on if you need to come in late a day or so would you say a month or every couple of months when you have a crash   Michael Newman  9:58   crushes really only have an episode whenever I get really stressed out, sometimes very, very rarely. I will miss miss medication, either at night or in the morning. And that can lead to some effects. But usually an episode doesn't happen often

For All Abilities – The Podcast Episode Twenty Eight - Kristine Toon - A Mom Helping Her Son Find Employment with Autism and ADHD.   In this episode, I interview Kristine Toon - mom of Michael. On the podcast, Kristine and I discuss Michael's early years, his strengths and his college experience. We also discuss her dreams for his future employment.  To connect with Kristine, please email her at jankdn@gmail.com. Join me on episode 29 when I interview her son Michael.  Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening!  Betsy     Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today!    Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it!   Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me   Twitter: @betsyfurler   Instagram: @forallabilities   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forallabilities/">@forallabilites   LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler   Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription from Otter.ai     Betsy Furler  0:05   Welcome to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. The aim of this podcast is to highlight the amazing things people with ADHD, dyslexia, learning differences and autism are doing to improve our world. Have a listen to for all abilities, the podcast and please subscribe on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to for all abilities, the podcast. This is your host, Betsy Furler. And today I'm doing something a little different. I am talking to Christine toon, and she is the mom of two adult children with neuro diversity and we're going to talk a little bit about what their lives have been like and they're both kind of at a turning point of going from education to employment. So we're going to talk a bit a little bit about that. So, hi, Christine, thank you so much for being on the show. Hi. Nice to be here. Yes. And why don't you just introduce yourself a bit to my audience?   Kristine Toon  1:14   Sure. I My name is Christine. And as she had said, I have two adult children that are moving to adulthood. They have had different challenges. One has had mostly autistic type symptoms, and that very high functioning but that comes with a whole nother set of problems when the world sees him because he looks very typical of other people. But then you find that he doesn't always understand things and they didn't know he didn't understand. And then my younger one is 23. And he has almost done with college. He'll graduate in December. But then we are now moving into a new part of his life where He's going to be looking for a job and trying to find the right employer for him.   Betsy Furler  2:07   Awesome. And how old were they when they were diagnosed or you realize there was something different going on?   Kristine Toon  2:13   Sure. Stephen was always the 25 year old was always quirky is what we called him. He did some odd things, but he was very bright and responsive to everything. He didn't speak until he was about a year old and they were odd words like I want this and that, and dog but he didn't say mommy and daddy and he pointed at most things. He was very fearful. And then when we put them in kindergarten, that's when everything kind of fell apart. I thought it was this perfect normal child as anyone who bought their first kid. And the first week of school, I got a phone call from the kindergarten teacher asking me to come into our conference. He was running away, not wanting to transition to anything, but just At home was fine, you know he they kind of train you in a way. And so, by the end of his kindergarten year, he was diagnosed with Asperger's. And then we started understanding the type of things he really needed to succeed. Michael on the other hand, he was older, he seemed more typical than Stephen did, but things fell apart in third grade. Bipolar started entering into his life, and he wouldn't remember things that he had done. And we were seeing some autistic tendencies also. So it was a long journey for us to get the right medications for the boys. Once they were put on the correct medications life did smooth out for us. It's still a challenge, but the out of control behaviors stopped by the time they hit junior high.   Betsy Furler  3:56   Oh, that's a blessing because sometimes that's the worst time   Kristine Toon  4:00   Yes, the medication route took from for Steven from kindergarten to fifth grade. And I know not everyone is into medications. But I must say today he started Risperdal. They're running away from school stopped. And Michael was probably third to sixth grade before the medications were evened out on him.   Unknown Speaker  4:23   Wow, that's a long time long road.   Kristine Toon  4:26   It was but thankful that we got there. So I'm not complaining because I know a lot of people give up or just don't want to get to that time period.   Betsy Furler  4:38   So tell us what you have gone through talking with them and the rest of the family about what, what they might want to do as they transition out of school and into the workplace.   Kristine Toon  4:52   That's been really difficult. Um, they both really like art. They love to draw. They like music. The problem with that is that there aren't always careers for that, of course, they wanted to design video games and they wanted to do web design in the typical things that we see with our kiddos. But that market is flooded a lot of times. So what I had suggested was they do those things as a side project and if it turns into something fantastic. If it doesn't, we need to have another plan also that that can be like a hobby to bring in extra money. That has gone well for my oldest Steven. We tried college with him but with his organizational skills, it wasn't really doable. And so he does music and art on the side and he does get some commission off of it. He does also work part time and receive a disability check to supplement. Michael doesn't really know what he wants to do right now. He is getting the degree So that he has something to fall back on. But, you know, we're concerned about finding the right employer that's willing to work with him.   Betsy Furler  6:09   So for Michael, what type of job like he want to do? Like, would it be an office based job? Like, kind of what his skills be? And what do you think the accommodations he would need would be   Kristine Toon  6:23   that I would assume he would really need an office job. The accommodations he would need would be clear instructions. Once he was comfortable with the job, he would be able to think outside the box. But in the beginning, he would meet clear direct instructions, and not to vary a bit. So our thoughts are, we're not sure how this is going to work. But our thoughts are get an entry level position in the larger company. Start from the bottom. Let them see he is a hard worker. He's willing to do things He is bright, and let them find the position for him. And like many of us, we didn't always know what we wanted to do when we got out of college. Some people have a clear direction on what they want. Maybe the employer can help guide him and then being in the workforce, he'll be able to find what he really enjoys doing.   Betsy Furler  7:24   Yeah, that sounds I mean, and I don't you think that's pretty typical of a lot of people. I mean, I know when I was in college, my majors were psychology and sociology. And then I kind of landed, I kind of happened into a speech pathology program or communication disorders program and ended up kind of fat falling into my lap. But I think many people have at that age have no idea really what they want to do with the rest of their lives.   Kristine Toon  7:52   I completely agree with you that our school districts now they're on kind of a track program where they they want them to pick His career in eighth grade and start molding them for that. And that's terrific, if you know what you want to do from an early age, but they're a little more lost sometimes. And I know that I am still some days trying to figure out what I want to do. I mean, I've been in the same jobs, banking for 15 years, and now I'm doing ministration work, but I think we kind of fall into what's good for us. And I'm really hoping that an employer is going to find his value, because it is there.   Betsy Furler  8:38   What all have you done so far? Or is he done and looking for positions?   Kristine Toon  8:45   that's been very difficult for Michael. Stephen, the older child is very outgoing, extremely social. The problem is Stephen doesn't have a filter, which doesn't seem to get him in trouble because people think that he's funny. Michael is more reserved and doesn't always give eye contact. And so he has looked for jobs and for two years, he was really unable to find anything. He'd have a job for a little bit. And they let him go for one reason or another. And recently the COVID thing, he did have a job as a dishwasher and was enjoying it. He was doing a good job, he they would call him and he he was getting lots of hours actually. But then COVID hit and of course that position went out of business. So it's it's not an easy finding, even part time jobs that were willing to work with, with him. And then we have the added problem of he needs to take medication, and the medication does today and so a lot of jobs for teens and young adults once you work to midnight. The hours or hours don't work for kids with disabilities. He needs to be home by 10 minutes. To take the medication so he can get up to do his classes The next morning, so he's not asleep now.   Betsy Furler  10:07   Yeah, that is so true. That's a very good point. What are some other things like what do you think that employers could do to make a position   Unknown Speaker  10:20   more appropriate for

For All Abilities – The Podcast: A High Acheivier with ADHD with De'Nicea Hilton In this episode, I interview Dr. De'Nicea Hilton. She is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and creates playful, healing spaces for women. We had a fun, joy filled discussion about life and ADHD. We discuss the challenge of her very unusual diagnosis of ADHD as an adult while working in an adjacent field! We also discussed how she has navigated school and work with her unique brain. To connect with De'Nicea, please go to her website www.deniceahilton.com, follow her on LinkedIn (De'Nicea Hilton) and on Instagram at DeniceaHilton. Please subscribe to For All Abilities – The Podcast! Please follow me on Instagram @forallabilities, LinkedIn (Betsy Furler) and on Facebook (For All Abilities). Go to our website www.forallabilities.com for information on our software that enables employers to support their employees with ADHD, Dyslexia, Learning Differences and Autism. Thanks for listening! Betsy Thanks for listening to For All Abilities today! Share the podcast with your friends, they'll thank you for it! Get our newsletter and stay up to date! The newsletter link is on our website www.forallabilities.com   Follow me Twitter: @betsyfurler Instagram: @forallabilities Facebook: @forallabilites LinkedIn: @BetsyFurler Website: www.forallabilities.com   Full Transcription by Otter.ai Betsy Furler 0:25 Hi, everybody. Welcome back to for all abilities the podcast. I am so excited that you're here to hear about another professional who is living and thriving and working with neuro diversity. Today we have Denise sia here with us and Denise, could you please introduce yourself to our audience? De'Nicea Hilton 0:49 Yes. Hey, Betsy, thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm so excited because I've not actually talked openly about this. Awesome Yeah, so I'm denisa Hilton, Doctor of Oriental medicine and holistic play activator. So I am in this space where I create these playful healing spaces, typically for women, so that they can embrace, embody and express their perfect, authentic selves. Betsy Furler 1:22 That's awesome. So we'll have to talk more about that as we get on with the show. But I first I want to tell us what you were like as a little girl and what was school like kind of in those early years elementary school years? De'Nicea Hilton 1:36 So let me think Let me think I was definitely one of those kids that I got along with other kids definitely got along with other kids. I would say that I was sensitive in a way that my mom would tell me as an adult, like how some things I might get sad over or I might have wanted. I do Be curious, asking questions, things like that. I definitely was also the one who took her time doing things and take my time doing things and then also exploring, um, there came a time when I was like a third think was third grade, second third grade, where it drew their attention to like me talking in class. And then who I thought I was just having a chat with, I later learned was a psychologist was testing me. And then that's when they found out that I was a perfectionist, and they are like, She's also gifted and advanced. And so basically, she's bored. So like, that's when they learned, okay, they my parents and my teachers, like Alright, well basically that's what it is. And so we gotta like step it up a notch. So my classes changed. So that was I was with I was getting a curriculum that was quote unquote tougher so that I would stay engaged. My mom totally like through me and some other activities and whatnot. I read a lot like reading was one of the things I love doing. And I still have some of my books from when I was little too. Betsy Furler 3:22 So were you a good student? Like were you making good grades? De'Nicea Hilton 3:27 Yeah, I totally was it was just what was causing my mom's attention was that it was taking me forever to do homework or sometimes like classwork. If I was the one who would be like one of the last to be done. And so that's where my mom was, you know, asking them like, what kind of work are y'all giving these kids because it's taking so long, but I would just be so engrossed in it. And I do recall, there are times and I'm like this even now and I have to leave catch myself when I'm doing it. Um, but like even just, you know, you're you're learning, you're in math. And then you're learning all like division and the addition and everything I was the one that I would seriously take my time writing so that all the numbers were lined up that the equal line was like perfectly online with a notebook paper. Unknown Speaker 4:25 Ah, De'Nicea Hilton 4:28 yeah. And so like if it was thrown off, like I was it for some reason, I think like, Oh, well, then my back would be off if, if they're not all perfectly lined up. And so I can see where I do that now. Even just drafting notes and, and whatnot, how I might go into that space of totally critiquing how I'm writing and then I'll have to, like, snap out of it, you know? Betsy Furler 4:53 Yeah. And that can really derail us from getting anything done from our productivity. By doing that, yeah, yeah. So as you went on in school, so then you were in the gifted program and what Where did you grow up? What area of the country? Us? I guess I should start with that. De'Nicea Hilton 5:11 Yeah, I'm in the US in the Tampa Bay, Florida area. Unknown Speaker 5:16 Where you're still are right. Yeah. Betsy Furler 5:19 And so as you, you know, went through elementary school and then middle and high school. How did I get in exchange for you at all? Or do Where did you still like, excel at academics? De'Nicea Hilton 5:32 Yeah, I still. It just got, I don't want to say it got harder because it wasn't really I mean, my mom was on top of it. She was very active in our academics. So she made sure that we were I was in the programs and the classes that I that I would Excel and I didn't really dip as in grades or anything. Like that, you know, a time I really dipped was in behavior in one class for talking. But that was pretty much it. Then I went into a magnet. Like at that time, there was only magnet schools. And then like the IB program, which many would know as the International Baccalaureate program. It wasn't available in middle school. So I ended up being accepted into the program and joining that program in high school. So pretty much from the time that I was tested and they switched over my classes. I was always in the classes that were going to challenge that and my mom made sure that I was and I just stayed on top of it. And you know, with all the projects and whatnot in middle school, I remember I remember one of my teachers even then I asked to be in she offered to that I would come into a different went to her classes because the class that I was slated for was a little bit too easy for me. And it was a language class. So then I would end up going to another one of her classes. So even then I was a little bit more advanced and in that regard, too, so I think like I just kind of in started taking on the like, is this easy way? Is there something else that I could do like because that's that's when I started channeling I guess what, what now I would say is boredom. Is is asking if there was anything more of right Betsy Furler 7:33 yeah. So you just like continually kind of challenged yourself to keep yourself from being bored and it sounds like you when you were young, or maybe your mom helped you with this. You were fairly organized. Unknown Speaker 7:46 I yeah, like De'Nicea Hilton 7:49 I really was actually not I think about it like some Well, well, sometimes depending on who it was. They might look at my room and be like what in the world is going is like otic mess, like you couldn't really like you couldn't be dirty like we just didn't and I wasn't really like that either. But I could see that there are times like, oh, and I got my first desk. I'm trying to organize my desk and put that in. Like, will this organization work for me? Like, I don't know. Like I just keep trying all these different things and even now Yeah, like I've it's, it has its moments and spots of very clear and then other times there's a pile or a few that Betsy Furler 8:39 so and then you went to college, obviously. And it did not go well academically. I guess I should, I guess. I'm glad for you. Well, I don't want to get your way out of order. But I want you to I do want you to tell the audience about your diagnosis because you have what your diagnosis is a little bit different. So, tell us what happened. You know what happened next? And obviously you were already working when you got the diagnosis. But anyway, go on with your story. De'Nicea Hilton 9:08 Yeah, um, did you want me to go into college? Or you want me to go? Betsy Furler 9:12 Yeah, yeah, just Yeah. Tell us how college was. De'Nicea Hilton 9:15 Yeah. Um, so I went to undergrad and I will now that we're talking about it, it's it's really making me think right like, and try to remember a lot of things. Um, during that time, I want to say that now I can appreciate that structure that I actually had that I didn't realize was structure. So I did struggle a little bit in college. Because there was just so much going on, where I was like, Oh, I want to go and do this like and just the different types of people that I met the different activities, the different organizations ended up like prioritizing those and then like I'm going to work now. So a lot of those things that became available is like, Oh, well, school stuff can kind of go by the wayside. And then what I learned towards the end, though, was that I realized just how much it is that I can work in spurts. So one of the tricks was that I learned going to summer school was the best thing for me. Because the classes were typically shorter, like if they were summer a or summer B, for those who may not know, so then it'll be like, instead of the full, like 1516 weeks, y