SIO493: Kids with ADHD/Autism Struggle with Mental Health. New Study Says Maybe It's the Stress of Being Different

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:14 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 493. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and got a really good one for you today. Actually, two, two -parter. I have often joked, and it's barely a joke, that being a listener of this show, or pretty much any of my shows, a diagnosis of ADHD is certainly indicative. And I know this applies to so many of you. If not you, someone you know, someone you love, your kids there's been some really good research recently on ADHD and autism, probably more on the autism focus, but it covers both, as we'll get to, what's causing negative mental health outcomes with kids with autism and ADHD. I think a lot lot of people assume that it's just something that might correlate due to, you know, emotional regulation problems. But what if it's actually just what it's like to go through the world these conditions? And what ifit's actually more about how these folks are having to deal with the world and less about anything like inherent? As a dad of kids who probably all have some sort of something. We'll see. Who knows? Is very relevant to me. I think it'll be relevant to you as well. Jenessa Seymour is going to take us through this. We are both folks with ADHD and Jenessa is Audi HD as a label I think folks use these days. We're going to talk a lot about like what it's like to have these things, one or both of them, what it'S like to move through the world with them, and this research, which is really good. So this is a lot of fun. It's going to be very insightful. I think we're gonna learn a lot. With that being said, please support the show, patreon .com slash serious pod. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this and keep the show going. You so much to those who support you are the lifeblood of this little podcasting enterprise that I do. And I appreciate you so Much. After break we'll get to it all

0:02:09 Thomas: Joined by OA co -host and also -haver of ADHD, Jenessa Seymour. How are you doing?

0:02:18 Jenessa: I am doing good and hopefully focused today. We shall see.

0:02:24 Thomas: Makes one of us. No, hopefully the drugs kick in as usual. Yeah, we're going to be talking about ADHD in particular study that both Lydia and I saw that sounded really interesting and I think, um, activated your ADHD, uh, hyper -focus as well. Are we going to be talking about?

0:02:44 Jenessa: So this is a really cool study, really well done, looking at the emotional emotional experiences of kids with ADHD and autism in school and looking at how that affects their emotional development over the lifespan. A recent study, so we're not actually going to get like 50 years lifespan, but it's, It's looking towards that direction. Yeah, Of

0:03:06 Thomas: And since this show can officially diagnose anyone who listens to it with ADHD, um... Especially now that the... Now that Trump and, uh... RFK Jr. and I might be able to make that happen, you know? Like, before it was a joke, but now I might able to...

0:03:11 Jenessa: Course.

0:03:21 Thomas: Hey, it's like a hundred percent of people who are into my show have adhd they'll be like oh cool also you're all going to a camp but yeah this official diagnosis if you listen to serious inquiries only um so anyway the pluses and minuses I'm saying you know that's

0:03:20 Jenessa: Oh, time they bring that up, I just thank God. The camp with us unmedicated. Dude, you are not stuck there with you. You are stuck there

0:03:43 Thomas: A good point that's that oh my god stop everything that's a hell of a heist movie that is a helluva heist move okay rfk jr put us adhd years in a camp and And then we all hyper -focus at the same time and we come up with an impossible plan and we execute it perfectly because we're all good under pressure. Well, most of, I won't speak for everybody, but people, people with ADHD tend to be, and I can vouch for that because I just need the chemicals to kick in to make me care about something. And then I'm a superhero.

0:04:12 Thomas: That's a, it's hard to do, but no, okay. That's my new heist movie. I actually legit think that's a good idea. Somebody make that. And anyway, that said, in perfect ADHD fashion, we can get back to the actual thing we were going to talk about, so yeah, Yeah, I know so many listeners are on the spectrum, have ADHD, that kind of thing. I hear from you each and every day, pretty much. I think it's kind of a cool like community we have of people who have the same kind of, you know, crazy interests going on with some of this. I know also as having one of our kids diagnosed. Well, actually, no, I guess that's technically not true, but kind of. Anyway, it's complicated. But one of my kids pretty, pretty assuredly going on with the something with the spectrum ADHD something. Something,

0:04:05 Jenessa: A common trait yep incredible Yeah.

0:04:56 Thomas: I know what it's like to, I don't know, just feel all kinds of the anxieties and everything that go on with worrying about your kids and how they're going to handle social situations and being at school and all this stuff that is just it's a lot harder with ADHD and with I don' t know as much about autism. Have that diagnosis, But I from, you know, friends and stuff as well, like it's really hard to fit in. Sometimes it thing that I think associate the most with, because I think it's a feature of probably both ADHD and autism, is a lot of just the stress and that maybe the guilt of feeling like you need to try to be doing things that other kids are doing in order to fit in, but it's very hard for you to do.

0:05:37 Thomas: That's something I certainly relate to. And fact did not fit in very well in grade school and stuff because it just was a different, you know, just different. I'm very interested in this. I can't wait to hear about what you found here in looking into the study. And it does sound like it's a good science thingy, not a bad science thing.

0:05:55 Jenessa: Yeah. I'm really excited about this one.

0:05:57 Thomas: Right, well, take us through it. Let's get to it.

0:06:00 Jenessa: So what do we have in this study? It looks like this is part of a larger project that is going to be ongoing, which is super cool. So if people want to follow it, it's the RE -STAR, like R -E -ST -A -R, Regulating Emotions, Strengthening Adolescent Resilience. A study that is in general looking at this problem where we know mental health issues start to get worse during adolescence. If you have one, it's going to get worse in adolescence. If you don't have one you might get one in adolescence and that seems be a really vulnerable time.

0:06:40 Thomas: Asking for a friend, what qualifies as adolescence? Like what age? What age is Phoebe? Be? I mean, does

0:06:46 Jenessa: So don't they have a total of 746 adolescents adolescence age 11 to 16 years. So, uh, in that period is what we're considering adolescence. Um, you know, obviously if you're sticking to like some strict biological definition that like, maybe you could talk about puberty or something, but psychological adolescence is more of like a brain thing. We don't have a hard line on like when your brain starts doing adolescence in some ways That's cultural yeah so you know, different brain areas develop at different rates so

0:07:16 Thomas: To add a less. Yeah. I, I, okay. Maybe I'm dumb, but I wasn't sure. I thought of adolescence as like, maybe like the pre puberty time. It sounds like maybe it'd just be that time, like puberty, 11 to 16, you know, kind of going into to that all

0:07:34 Jenessa: It sounds like that's what they're sticking to that's generally how I understood it um the time of turmoil which may vary in your culture um I've heard arguments that some Some cultures just don't even have this. That seems like a stretch to me, but there you go.

0:07:49 Thomas: Or just all the time so they don't know could be wow

0:07:52 Jenessa: We know in general, regardless of any disability, is just this time of mental health turmoil, and that doesn't necessarily go away in adulthood. We want you to try to come out of that feeling better, and that's not inevitable that kid is just going to get moody, and then they'll grow out of it. Well, maybe not. We're seeing in this study in particular is focused on kids with ADHD and autism. By adulthood, 50 % of autistic adults and 30 % of adults with ADHD have depression and or anxiety as a diagnosis, not just like -report, like diagnose clinical depression or anxiety.

0:08:38 Thomas: What were those sorry give me those percentages again

0:08:41 Jenessa: Of autistic adults and 30 % of adults with ADHD. It's a little above baseline. It's a little high.

0:08:50 Thomas: Wow that is a bummer I mean it it lands completely for me like I totally get it but like I I don't know I didn't know it was that high wow that

0:08:52 Jenessa: It's not great. Yeah. And there's been a hypothesis for a long time. We're going to have competing hypotheses here, which competing hypotheses are really, they're scientific hypotheses, different ways of thinking about these neurodivergences, but it's also, I think, different philosophical approaches to thinking about disability sorry specific hypotheses they're bringing in here uh common way this has been thought about why is it that autistic and adhd kids they get lumped together a lot because these two disorders are very similar and possibly opposite sides of the same coin or I would argue same sides of the same coin just manifesting a little differently they're um

0:09:41 Thomas: Made it not any more clear yeah I've been I've I've been wondering about this for a while. Like I keep hearing about this and I don't entirely know what it means, but yeah. So we don't have to get into it if that's not what this study was about.

0:09:53 Jenessa: I guess I'll just say briefly um they have a lot of overlap in symptoms there are a lot of people who have both and um has some clear identified like oh this is what causes it or whatever and that starts to make you think these are bucket diagnoses. There are lots of people who have an ADHD diagnosis with different causes, different reasons. It may also be that these are different ways for the same cause to manifest. You could have two people with the same kind of thing going on, whether that's genetic or environmental or social or whatever. And for this person, the way that ends up manifesting is these symptoms and for this other person it manifests in this other way for whatever reason it's just poorly understood

0:10:23 Thomas: Interesting. There, is there some other thing that's like that, that you could like, analogize with, you know, is there any other condition that's liked that?

0:10:45 Jenessa: Well so there's certainly things where um all react to stress differently um we've talked about with adhd we like under pressure focus in some most reliable people you know the second there's like stress they are just a hot mess um

0:11:00 Thomas: Yeah. I guess I mean like actual, like, are there other disorders or other? Yeah. Like, is there something where it's like you go one where I've just never heard of that. That kind of makes, maybe makes sense. Or is that just kind of a theory?

0:11:03 Jenessa: Uh yeah um so I've heard it proposed with this before but it's it's not like some wild out there thing that's first proposed here like certainly different people respond differently to different drugs um gender of course comes into this that we'll find the exact same medication works differently for men and women. And of course, it's not like, oh, in all men, it works exactly like this. And in all women, they need exactly this dose instead. Like, these are spectrums, right? So yeah, can happen with uh with trauma for example so like some people will go into fight or flight some people go into that like fawning sort of like down response some people People with prolonged stress get hypervigilance, where this is a symptom of PTSD, where people are just like constantly on alert, waiting for the next thing to happen, whereas other people get very closed in and like nothing makes them react anymore. And these are all different ways of reacting to the same problem, and they're all unhealthy. Like any of these could be symptoms of that. There's also with us, I think schizophrenia, you can have catatonic schizophrenia. Is a type where the person is very like down like you see very few behaviors they can almost fall into like it looks like a coma they're just like doing nothing and then there's a very up kind of schizophrenia where they're very reactive and engaged in a lot of behaviors they're hallucinating they're delusional they are um very verbal you manic like and

0:12:43 Thomas: That has literally the same name. So you're thinking it could, it's sort of like that kind of thing, maybe, or could be. Okay. Interesting.

0:12:46 Jenessa: Possibly. Not at all in the same way of like, I am, we'll talk more about this. I am very big on like not pathologizing these things, at least nearly not as much as the medical system does. Schizophrenia, yeah, I think we can have healthily pathologize that. I think that's like not a happy, fun experience for people. Probably a thing people would like to not have. Um but there is like I remember in school being like how are these both called schizophrenia one of them is somebody just sitting there staring straight ahead doing nothing and one of them is somebody like absolutely running around losing it hallucinating like that doesn't make sense but they are good

0:13:27 Thomas: Well, even, even ADHD. Sorry. Sorry. We're, I'm sorry. We're ADHDers. I'm interrupting you. We're thinking so sorry even adhd we've got the hyperactivity version and the not and I don't have the hyper activity version and so I just I just sit I'm that turtle like I just literally I don'T KNOW IF THIS IS RELATED BUT I DON'T EVEN HAVE A PULSE I DONT LIKE PEOPLE TRY TO STARTLE ME IT'S DIFFERENT ONCE I STARTED TAKING THE DRUGS I ACTUALLY CAN GET STARTLED AND IT'S ALMOST NICE LIKE OH OH SOMEONE KIND OF SCARED ME THAT WAS NICE IT'S LIKE I'M ALIVE BUT told this story a long time ago on a podcast where at my old job, I had somebody, I don't remember why, but they were going to try to do some sort of stupid scare thing, prank, something. I have no fucking idea why. And I was carrying hot tea. I come around a corner and someone behind the door goes, ah, and nothing happened. And I Was like,

0:13:33 Jenessa: We're so off already already ready oh mm -hmm wow oh

0:14:19 Thomas: Wow, I'm glad I don'T have like a pulse because for other people that could have been bad. I have zero, like, it's funny. I don't like I go on those rides. I love it. I love going on like the drop zone type rides.

0:14:24 Jenessa: Man yeah huh oh my

0:14:33 Thomas: That's where I can kind of feel a little bit of something where I'm like, oh, OK, this is nice.

0:14:38 Jenessa: So here's where we couldn't be more opposite and I have ADHD like emphasis on the H like this is how I can't believe nobody caught caught it in retrospect except like it was the 90s nobody was diagnosing girls but like I was just go go go moving or I'm still like that I'm just pacing and touching everything and moving and um my brother so like 50 percent shared genetics also has ADHD he's like you he He is just chill, sleepy. He does not have the H at all. He the inattentive type, the hyperactive type, and the combined type. And I am combined. I got everything.

0:15:01 Thomas: I'm so jealous. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. Bummer. Sorry.

0:15:27 Jenessa: What can you do? Though he and I are genetically extremely related, and presumably presumably that has something to do with why we both have adhd we still don't manifest in the same way it appeared differently in both of us and who knows why that is oh

0:15:44 Thomas: I just think of like my mom, like, I know it comes from my mom and she just, she can't even watch like a show, you know, it's, I don't know how bad that is for you, but I was, for a moment I was like, oh, I'm jealous. I would love to be more active in doing things and whatever. But like, you also can't watch a fucking movie.

0:16:03 Thomas: Some people, my mom is, she has a very hard time and my brother's the same way. And that would, that would kind of drive me nuts. I'll be honest.

0:16:11 Jenessa: I'm just I gotta get up and go and like my dad he's never been diagnosed but I mean he's in his 60s like they they this didn't even exist as a diagnosis when he was a kid he like will be like Dad, you're going to love this. Sit down. And he'll watch the first five minutes and then he's like, I got to mow the lawn. And then he comes back and he watches another five minutes. And he's like, that's the killer. And I got a cooked dinner. And it comes back, and he's fucking knew it and that, sorry.

0:16:37 Thomas: Oh, that would be me if I didn't care. That's me. To be fair, that's me if I don't care about the thing. Like, if I can't get into a movie, I'm like, boy, I need to get, I'm just like, I've also ruined my work brain where I'm, like, I have to be getting something done. I have to begin something, you know, like I don' t know how much of that is, like hyperactive versus, like oh my god, I can' t because of adhd, I ca' n't not think about the work I need do, but I do, I I'm very happy that I have the ability to hyper hyper -focused on things I like. And for me, that can be really good shows or movies. Like I love watching really good show. And I feel kind of sad for those people who can't, but I feel like everybody's got their stuff that they're interested in. They have something else they do, but I just, I love that ability. I've always had that ability and I'm thankful for it that like, if I, if I've got a good movie on, I live going to the theater. Cause it's like, I can actually kind of escape for a bit, you know? And it's, it's those things don't always happen or almost almost never do with ADHD. Cause it's so easy to be worried about everything. Now I'm not truly like, it's not like I'm enlightened. Like I'm still thinking about everything, but not as much.

0:17:36 Thomas: It's just like a little bit better, you know, same as why I play hockey. I think. Cause hockey is, I'm just focused on the fucking game. Like that's all I'm thinking about. No, I said that. I said that. That's not all I think about.

0:17:37 Jenessa: Just trying to, you no, I understand.

0:17:48 Thomas: I need to qualify it again. It's like, I think I go down to like a lower, almost normal level of thinking about other stuff. Or it's like that other stuff stuff doesn't really, it's like I can think about it in a way that doesn't bother me or something. I don't know. That's hard to explain, but anyway, go ahead.

0:18:02 Jenessa: The racing thoughts is a really really common aspect of, that's actually how one of my psychiatrists put me me on off -label this medication. On -lable. It is for bipolar disorder, for the manic symptoms. She was like, I don't, she mentioned the medication and then looks at me looking at her knowing that I know what that medication is. And she's like, I don'T think you have bipolar disorder. And I was like whew, thank God. I, The last thing I need is one more diagnosis.

0:18:30 Jenessa: And she was like, yeah, so here's what I'm thinking. You're describing like after all these other meds I've tried and like I can focus now and I feel better about this and this and like Adderall's a freaking miracle. Hallelujah. Still pacing and I'm Still ruminating. I'm having my thoughts are very just can't stop thinking about the same thing and playing it over. And it doesn't even have to be negative things. I just can'T make the thing stop. She was like, okay, so what you're describing, I it's very similar to mania. Let's find out if the mania drugs work. And holy shit, this drug, I am like the most level I've ever been in my life. It's great.

0:19:09 Thomas: Yeah, you sound very calm. No, I'm just kidding.

0:19:12 Jenessa: Yeah, I sound so chill, right? I like this for me dude if you met 20 year old me oh my

0:19:17 Thomas: Okay. So this is, you've been on this the whole time I've known you. Okay. Okay, okay, okay so I withdraw my comment.

0:19:20 Jenessa: The whole time you've known me I have been on three different drugs

0:19:24 Thomas: Yeah there's no no way I could. So I have no context at all is what you're saying. Okay. Got it.

0:19:28 Jenessa: You don't know the hell everyone who knew me was putting up with well

0:19:33 Thomas: God, I say that same thing about myself, though it's less to do with drugs and more to do avec emotional immaturity. But anyway, we will definitely get anyone who, this is a test, anyone who has ADHD enough to get through this monstrosity, that's what we're saying, will get then the uh interesting insight about their kids yeah

0:19:46 Jenessa: Yeah well you go yes perfect now you know what is going on when When you're, especially if you have two neurodivergent kids who are just locked in talking to each other and you're like, what the hell is going on? This. This is what's going on. They're fine. They look like they're losing it and they're fine, don't worry about them.

0:20:04 Thomas: Mine are all mine all three are different and I'm gonna have find different combinations of ways that they can live together and I don't know that I might be stuck you know I'm still waiting to see I think remy and arlo may just be incompatible it just may be or or if I can get remy into anything that arlo's into to will be fine. But Arlo's like, I have one thing I want to do calmly forever. And Remy is like, I wantと do every different thing at every different moment ever for the rest of my life. So we'll see.

0:20:28 Jenessa: You go. Oh.

0:20:39 Thomas: To round out that conversation, it is interesting that you're talking about like, you know, you mentioned stress response and whatever. So you're thinking this is still theoretical, right? Where it's like we don't know exactly what causes all But you're thinking that ADHD and autism could be two divergent kind of ways that people respond to the same something. But my question was going to be like, what is that something? Do we still not know? Or at least theoretically, what does that something scientists can do is we think it's a brain thing. Us more funding. No,

0:21:04 Jenessa: We still really don't know. So presumably a brain thing, like our brains, it's a behavior. So presumably, yeah, presumably not like, look, if it was something so simple, like a single gene, we would have figured that out by now. If it was, oh, just like one drug that's already on the market, ta -da, like you're exactly like every other person, we Would have figured that out by now. Brains are like that last frontier of like the thing we understand the least about because they are so complex. Think this starts to lean more and more into this idea that, I'm sure people have heard the term neurodivergence. Think in a lot of ways it's been used to say, oh, like that's just the PC word we use now.

0:21:55 Jenessa: That's not what it was intended for. Historically, this I want to say 70s, 80s, it first started being talked about. There's actually, gosh I'm gonna forget their name, there's an activist who was also openly non -binary at that time and like very public and having conversations about that which was a big deal and also autistic and came up with this term neurodiversity and neurodivergent versus neurotypical and philosophy there was not to say oh like call me this instead it was a radical rethinking of this isn't medical at all I'm just different then

0:21:55 Thomas: Interesting wow oh interesting okay

0:22:35 Jenessa: You can take that very radical stance of like 100 do not even a little bit pathologize this um Almost from the very beginning, ADHD and autism were considered, we've always kind of been buddies, and got put together in that, and put themselves together in that, I guess you would say. Certainly, I'm not going to tell anybody how to feel about their own disability, let alone somebody else's. But there's a lot of attitudes along that spectrum. Know, I guess for myself, I would say there are certain aspects of ADHD that I find objectively disabling. Like, if I could stop forgetting things, Jesus Christ.

0:23:12 Jenessa: The number of times I lose my phone every day, that's just not fun. There's nothing fun about that.

0:23:12 Thomas: Isn't it so funny how different we are though like but I feel like there's a similar thing because I have this all the time I there will be certain things things I bet I'm guessing could be wrong that you because you care about them a lot you do the opposite where you will never fucking forget them but that or that's just me so like my phone never lose it in a million years never happen just won't happen

0:23:41 Jenessa: I don't lose it outside the house.

0:23:43 Thomas: But I won't lose it anywhere like I'm part of okay now we're doing the male female thing I have pockets like that's honestly like a big part of it that's like honestly a big parte of it but but the same goes for uh stuff with lydia even though she doesn't did we that we know of have adhd but um funny because there are things where I've talked about on dads a lot where because I I have this I'm not you know call it a disability I don't know whatever it's definitely not great a lot of times um I will never remember I have just no fucking memory at all and therefore what I have to do too, is everything is ritual based, routine based.

0:23:49 Jenessa: That's fair. Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm.

0:24:16 Thomas: And I very much never miss the rituals that I set up because they're so important to me. So like taking pills is very important. I need to take my pills at the right times. It's very important to be, especially because that started as just having a horrible stomach thing that I have to take a pill for. And like, truly, if it's like it sucks if you miss your ADHD meds, but you're you know, you just have a weird day more than like it, but like if I miss my stomach meds, I can't, I'm dead. Like I just can't do anything. Yeah. And like, it's interesting because I'll talk to a lot of ADHD people who are like, oh, I always forget. I always forgot. I'm like, I never, never forget to take my medication because I built in this routine that I do every time. It's funny that I just think for for as different as we are, I do think it's a similar thing where it's, it'S your hyper focus go and where does your, you know, and so I totally agree. And I think there are a lot of people listening and I hope, no you one takes any offense. And I Think you put it perfectly, which is I'm not telling anyone how to feel about their own disability or but I do see folks a lot in the comments talking about the theory that like actually autism there it's it's not a disability in any way. It's just the world is not built right for you. And I just don't go for that. I mean, I guess I can only speak for ADHD since it's the diagnosis I have. Like, there are just kind of incompatibilities. And I suppose it could be true, but there's theory of mind where some people, when you're all the way, and I've talked with people who actually work with people with autism. And I that once you see someone who is, you lack of a better term, really on the far end of the spectrum it's unquestionably a disability. They can't do like by themselves, like they Can't actually take care of themselves. And I personally don't just for me, again, I won't tell to feel. Maybe it's because I already like I have some stuff that I've always thought of, like I'm not, scoliosis isn't normal. Like I've always felt very alienated by having that. It's just another thing like the ADHD that, that is like a thing I have that's different. And I don't, I've never felt this need to like make it that it's, Oh, it's actually a superpower. Think I'm very realistic.

0:24:44 Jenessa: Misery. Mm.

0:26:17 Thomas: There are things, there are pluses and minuses. There are, there are things that really are good about it. There are thingS that are not good about.

0:26:20 Jenessa: Well, Well this actually perfectly fits the academic conversation around this.

0:26:26 Thomas: Thank God.

0:26:27 Jenessa: That, average person, like, I, doesn't necessarily think in very categorical ways about this or even use this language. But when we look at the ways people approach the world and the way our culture defines things, the two hypotheses in this study are actually going to match really well with the broader way our cultural thinking about disability. So there's certain models of disability that are, they're going to sound really categorical. They're not not actually necessarily incompatible. Way, which is what people will be most familiar with and grew up with in our culture, the medical model. A disability, how do you define a disability? It is a disease. You want to treat it, maybe even cure it if you can. It is a bad thing. It's internal to you. Doctors help you get rid of it. Migraines fit this really well. Most accommodating world where everybody's understanding.

0:26:27 Thomas: Let's get back to something academic. Yeah. No fucking

0:27:21 Jenessa: I want migraines.

0:27:21 Thomas: Way. No.

0:27:22 Jenessa: I want to cure them. I wanna get rid of them. They suck. Pain disorder is gonna fit the medical model very well. Don't have an identity around a that it hurts uh

0:27:33 Thomas: Right. Anxiety, you there's no better way the world to be like I don't want to have my heart explode when I'm going to do a competition. I just don't. I want to do the competition as I'm not being forced to do competition. I like doing stuff like that. I like playing sports. Don't want to have a heart attack. That stop. We don't right.

0:27:47 Jenessa: So social model is going to say how disabling is something well it depends on your society and your culture so think about if you didn't have legs how disabling is that it depends do you live in a culture where there are three wheelchairs and ramps and elevators and medical care to, you know, your wheelchair can be fixed and replaced quickly and easily. Well, I mean, how disabling is it really once that's available?

0:28:20 Thomas: Mm hmm.

0:28:20 Jenessa: If you live in a culture where none of that exists, it's extremely disabling.

0:28:26 Thomas: There's absolutely truth to that, like undeniable truth to that so I see what you're saying where it's like I think both these things are true and it's kind of about the combination and spectrum of them and kind of when they apply like like vision I mean is that a good example where it'S like if you live in uh you know well shit you're nearsighted you're kind of fucked you know like you're you're pretty I forget when they invented all that stuff maybe actually maybe it was before that I know there have been lenses for a long time but but like you know you live now it's Like certain uh disabilities related to vision I I mean, they're nothing now, like for some of them, you know, so it's, it really is context dependent and that's going to be societally, it's going to be in time, temporally, you know, it is, but, but I really do think that thinking it's all one or all the other on that is not the way to go, in my opinion.

0:28:51 Jenessa: Don't know. Yeah, the first glasses. Mm hmm. Sure. Culturally deaf community will tell you 100 % social model for them. When they are in a group that is just 100 % culturally deaf people, they are all using assigned language. They are in a house where the doorbell flashes the lights instead of ringing. They have their little little vibrating alarm clock. Everything's set up for them. They're not disabled. And a hearing person who walks into that environment, you're the disabled one. We have to get you a translator. You don't know the culture. You're feeling a little lost. We're fine. It's when we walk into the hearing world that is not accommodating us. That's when it's experienced as a disability. So the perspective of many people in that culture 100 social this accommodate me better and I'd be fine it's all your problem oh

0:30:02 Thomas: There's something a little bit weird about that idea that it would have, you would have to completely segregate yourself within a small, you know, like I don't really, yeah,

0:30:08 Jenessa: So this is where it's accommodate better is really just um options like I'll give you an example like because I I worked with a lot of deaf people in grad school and um you know I picked up sign language because I was working with them all the time um it was a heavily deaf environment um on in my career they got there was an interpreter there and it was not for them it was for me I was one of like three hearing people in the room and I was the one who needed an interpreter um university famous it's the only deaf university um there's technically like a deaf college somewhere Somewhere in the US. Around there, because so many deaf people come to Gallaudet, the restaurants in the neighborhood, someone works there who signs. Restaurants are well lit. So you can actually see each other while you're talking. Instead of like, you know, you and I could talk in the dark. No, I need to see your hands. So the restaurant is not dim mood lighting. Like,

0:30:34 Thomas: That's so cool hmm

0:31:05 Jenessa: There's just little accommodations like that. But I've also been with friends where they you know, go up and they know this person is hearing and doesn't sign and they'll just write something on a pad of paper and it says, hi, I'm deaf. Here's what I need. They pass them the paper and the person, instead of just writing back, insists on like yelling louder or like anything but just I passed you a pad of paper. Like, I am accommodating the two of us so easily right now. I have provided the means of accommodation. The number of times they show up at an airport and they're like, hi, I'm deaf, and somebody brings a wheelchair, and they'RE like, when did I say my legs don't work? They get given the Braille menu all the time, and it's like, I have eyes. I can, in fact, I don't read read braille.

0:31:47 Thomas: That's funny yeah is nothing to me yeah that's

0:31:55 Jenessa: Useless. So yeah, not helping at all. So like accommodating does not necessarily have to mean this type of like, you into a small group. It's more like can the hearing world, it'd be awesome if we all just learned a sign language. That'd be, there are many advantages to it. I, Dan knows a little bit of sign language, my partner, and I often like across the room can just give him the like, hey, you want a drink as opposed to like screaming it, which I could just do.

0:31:56 Thomas: You've made me more disabled thank you sure yeah good point okay I thought this was going to be you saying I can often just flip them off from across the thing and then that's when I

0:32:28 Jenessa: I mean, I could do that, too. You know, there would be advantages to all of us learning some sign or we could just be cool, man, like have some accessibility around us. So yeah, there's that option. I really like, the interdependence model, all, another way of thinking about disability says everybody certain accommodations. So when we go to a building, if New York City, most places have a little bit of a walk up. There's a couple of stairs to get in. Don't look at the building plan and realize you're going to be three feet off the sidewalk and be like, well, why can't all of you people just do a three foot vertical leap? Why do I got to put stairs in here? Here. I got to spend the extra expense of designing my building with stairs. What is wrong with you people? No, you just take for granted that humans are not goats and we need stairs. We cannot climb a vertical surface. But for some reason, because some smaller percentage of people need a ramp, we do that for ramps. Oh my God, you are going to require me to spend this extra money on a ramp? Camp but the stairs are in accommodation if we go to a conference and it's a big room and I'm talking to a bunch of people well maybe not me because I could shout to a football stadium but you group of people you're giving a talk if it's matt matt needs a microphone and

0:32:51 Thomas: Frequently my message. Yeah,

0:34:06 Jenessa: The people in the back of that room need him to have a microphone if we were deaf there would would be no microphones and like you wouldn't build into the conference the expense of renting microphones and speakers and all this stuff but as hearing people we take for granted of course if I have scheduling a conference either I can afford mics and speakers or I can't have a conference we don't treat that like it's a luxury also

0:34:06 Thomas: Needs a couple. Right. Interesting. To be fair, a lot of them just have really bad sound and are terrible and no one can hear, and then no one does anything about it.

0:34:38 Jenessa: An option it it is frustrating right you're standing in the back of the room going I can'T believe nobody thought about this that is how a a lot of people with disabilities feel all the time.

0:34:46 Thomas: Jesus Christ, that's how I feel about almost everything, because there's some other either disability that everyone but me has or an ability that I have that That is noticing when something's fucking wrong. Like, oh, wow, no one can hear. Does anyone else care? No, no, I don't care. I don' t know. Some of the people who can't hear don't even care sometimes. I don''t know. Because they're like, yeah, whatever. Someone's saying something. I don ''t know.''

0:35:07 Jenessa: When you think about it from all these different perspectives right I actually think ADHD and autism fit all of these well in different ways. Sensory sensitivities suck. It's not fun to be like I just I need that fabric to not touch me. I need you to get away from me with microfiber. Just don't don't touch me with it. I can't with that stuff. So I officially have an ADHD diagnosis. I like half officially have a autism diagnosis. Move a lot. So, I get a new therapist a lot and every time I get new therapist at the end of the intake, they hand me a bunch of questionnaires and one of them will be ADHD. They don't put this on the top of the form, but I recognize it because I've studied this stuff and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to score high on that one and And they'll give me generalized anxiety disorder. And I'm like, I'm going to score close to high on this one. But I know they'll say better explained by ADD. And then they'll gives me what I know is the autism one. And I am like, just below the cutoff. Because it's like, oh, you have prosody in your voice. And you make eye contact. And I was like, yeah, that's because they don't let girls not make eye contact. Like, you're not allowed to not do that.

0:36:18 Jenessa: There's ways I have learned to mask and cover up my symptoms until I finally started seeing therapists. By then I had learned to like not act autistic. But there's just so many little things like, I mean, this is going to sound so bizarre. I was looking for documents the other day at my parents' house and I found my preschool report card because my mother is a maniac who kept that.

0:36:41 Jenessa: And it literally said, oh, she's talking so well. She's starting to read. That's so impressive. Like her, you know, motor development looks good. She's not playing with the other kids.

0:36:41 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah.

0:36:54 Jenessa: She kind of just goes in the corner and plays by herself. Have you noticed that? We've noticed that. It's like, oh my God. I thought this was social anxiety. I developed as like a middle school and I was like, it started that early? My God! So like there's just, there's many symptoms and my therapists always give me the look when I like just barely barely hit the cutoff. So probably. I've never bothered to go get officially diagnosed because there's not a medication and there's nothing they're going to do for an adult. So screw it, who cares? Yeah, for me, the sensory stuff is, oh boy, the sounds. Somebody mows the lawn and I wish death on them. I'm normally such a peaceful person. If they had a stroke, I'd be like, good. I hope that lawnmower turns off before so I don't have to go out of there and push your dead body off of it. I can't with the lawnmowers and the microfibers and the blech. I don't want it to touch me. So those things are not positive. There are so many things you could do to just make my life easier that is like, this doesn't have to be disabling. It's disabling because you have not accommodated me. Why do I have to sit still for this long? That's dumb. That's bad for

0:38:07 Jenessa: Everyone's health a nine to five job we know this is like physically killing all of us anyway we should get up right

0:38:07 Thomas: Because we're trying to do a recording. I'm sorry. Oh, no. You mean in general. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Oh, yeah,. That's stupid. I love that it's actually not good for anyone. It's not even just us. But capitalism's like, nah, you like it. You're good with it.

0:38:23 Jenessa: I'm saving all of you you're welcome for demanding that we all get up and move like

0:38:34 Thomas: Is true. The normies do benefit from all these things that Trump has gotten rid of and is going to get rid of. You know, you're going to miss them, everybody. Not just not just us, you're not going to be able to get away with it, you know,

0:38:40 Jenessa: It's called the curb cut effect when they first put um curb cuts in for like wheelchairs, it benefits the local economy because people with like bikes and carriages with the kids are like, oh, perfect. I can go downtown easier. And all of a sudden, like everybody is glad it's there. So, put this all together. We're going to have that framework show up a lot in this study that we're finally going to talk about. No.

0:39:09 Thomas: If you don't like it, and you're like, well, I don't know what to do with it anymore. Sorry. I thought we were already sort of there.

0:39:11 Jenessa: We are, in a way. So we've got these kids, right? And they are, we know that as teenagers, you know, early, late teens, they're going through a lot of emotional changes. The autistic and ADHD kids, even worse. They're like really going through it. And by the time they come out of adulthood, their and anxiety diagnoses are through the roof. We have to be able to do something about this, right? One would hope. Well, for a long time, the hypothesis was emotional regulation deficits.

0:39:47 Jenessa: Why do we think that is what's going on here? What we know. General, emotion regulation, learning to regulate your emotions, This is just a cognitive skill that we're developing. I'm experiencing an emotion and it's uncomfortable. And how am I going to learn to push through this? There are healthy ways and unhealthy ways. We're trying to learn good habits, yada, yада. This is a good thing to develop. So emotion regulation deficit in general for anybody would be having a clinically low ability to do that. I experience a bad emotion and I just lose it. I don't know what to do with these bad emotions. This is called children, right? They can't deal with their emotions. If it's developmentally appropriate, we wouldn't, you know, a two -year -old who can't emotionally regulate is just a two year old, right. You would not want to be 10 and still have like that kind of tantrum. That would be a problem.

0:40:43 Thomas: You see Remy and you're like, that seems more than just that. I can't prove it yet until he gets older.

0:40:52 Jenessa: Is difficult, for sure. Okay, we know that people who are having this, anybody, having this dysregulated emotion that can mediate the risk of depression emerging in adolescence, for anyone. For people who are young people with ADD and autism, we see more emotional irritability, reactivity, signs of dysregulation. Emotion we see people with autism and adhd with more emotional dysregulation because not everybody has it at this at all or at the same level those individuals are also going to show deficiencies in certain cognitive systems emotional perception awareness of different emotions executive control of their emotions metacognition all of these like skills that that are really important. And we know that those kinds of traits are predicting your long -term risk of adult depression and anxiety. So that just kind of makes sense, right? You struggle, anybody who struggles with emotion dysregulation is more likely to get these disorders. These kids struggle with emotion disregulation, and they're more likely to get these disorders. This is a medical model. This is internal. It's something about ADHD and autism that makes you more likely to have this particular struggle, which makes you more likely to develop these disorders, if only we could treat emotion dysregulation like targeted at the individual, the individual is like the problem, that would solve it. Alternative hypothesis here, the emotional burden burden hypothesis. And they say this is the first time this is being presented. And what suggest is instead of a regulatory deficit in the individual, what if these kids are experiencing more events, more environmental upset all day, way more than their peers, perhaps they're in an environment that is not designed for them so they refer to this as upsetting events and encounters and in theory anybody who is just getting constantly irritated and nagged by their environment would be more likely in the long run to have these these problems. What if it's the world around them?

0:43:22 Thomas: Okay. I, is it still the world around you? If you like more things annoy me than annoy other people because of, I don't know what, But blame the world, you that is also still me being more sensitive to things than other people, right?

0:43:32 Jenessa: Think about it like this. There was a particular thing that annoyed 90 % of people that much, we would have gotten rid of it.

0:43:44 Thomas: You'd think.

0:43:46 Jenessa: World just goes, well, that sucks, so let's address it. But if it is something that only bothers about 10 % of us, the world tends to be like, what's wrong with you? Deal with it. You're the problem sure

0:43:57 Thomas: I think you would have to look at what the alternative would be. And I know that many times you're talking curb theory or whatever you're taking where it's like it's all pluses and it benefits everybody. But when it comes to like interpersonal stuff, I feel like that's not true. Like, I feel like there's ways that if other all people had to do things that, work that better for like autistic people, I wonder if that would then in turn displease the normies and wouldn't be be like everybody's happier. It'd be more of a zero sum.

0:44:26 Jenessa: It's theoretically possible that some things we would do to accommodate one group could make things harder for another group it's it's not inherent that universal design uh going to make everybody happier all the time um oh I'm trying to think of what's a good example example

0:44:43 Thomas: Do they say anything in the study? Like what specifically in the the study. Okay.

0:44:46 Jenessa: No we're getting there yeah

0:44:48 Thomas: Okay, shot. Well, then I'll let you keep going.

0:44:49 Jenessa: So they they have this idea common upsetting events and encounters um already kind of have a questionnaire for this but it's really targeted at neurotypical kids they looked at kids and they looked at a lot of times not just what kids say bothers them but what adults report they think bothers kids. And they make a little questionnaire out of that and see how often kids are getting, you know, experiencing negative things in their life. And like, look, some of this is obvious. Yeah. Bullying is not good. Experiencing, you at home, you know, things like that. What this study did that I thought was really great, pulled in as a preliminary part of the study, kids who are, and kids, you you know, 11 to 16, who have ADHD, who have autism, and did a qualitative report of, like, what's bothering you? What's going on? Like, day to day, what would you say is, as you go through your day at home, at school, yada yada, what is happening that is really making your life difficult? And you collect those responses, and you see what's the most common thing. It does seem to be certain things show up that are are not on the usual questionnaire and that

0:46:00 Thomas: Interesting.

0:46:00 Jenessa: The neurotypical kids are not saying so okay they seem to have different you know it's not like the neur prototypical kids go through life like everything's great nothing's bugging me kids home from school and they're like I'm a teacher um the neurodivergent kids also have complaints but they're not the same so they make a questionnaire that is designed around that they start including those and our friend factor analysis returns um so once we have a questionnaire we're going to get a new sample of people and we'regoing to give it to them um ended up collapsing this how much does it bother you and how frequently does this happen it turned out this ended up when you looked at the ratings it was basically the same thing um that happened a lot were really upsetting and looked at a huge sample here, 100 kids with ADHD, 104 with autism, 79 with both, and 452 neurotypical kids. What they end up finding, looking general, yeah, we're seeing this adolescence, anxiety and depression starting starting to creep up. The kids with ADHD and autism are starting to show it more. So, okay, that lends us a little towards, yep, they're experiencing some emotion dysregulation. Then what we're also seeing is way higher frequency. You give this questionnaire, there's things that bother kids on it. There's added items that also bother neurodivergent kids. You can rank any of them, as many of them as you want, none of them. Whatever. Neurodivergent kids are reporting twice as many upsetting events in their just going to school and coming home. There are a lot of things happening that are not just unique to them, but the things that are unique to them are happening a lot. They're neurotypical peers. Things bother me but they they don't happen nearly as often so

0:46:28 Thomas: Love it. I just realized that because we were so, shall I say, sidetracked because we're

0:48:06 Jenessa: Right

0:48:06 Thomas: Going off it. I forgot that the thing you're this is trying to explain is not ADHD or autism itself. It's the depression and the other, it. Right.

0:48:14 Jenessa: Why are they dealing with this yes

0:48:16 Thomas: That makes way more sense. And I retract my previous concerns. Yeah. That, that's interesting. So it's not so, you know, it could have been not this, it could've been, you Know, obviously this has been like unsolved, right? So it could have been that there's just some co not comorbidity. What do you call it? When, when these things just go together? I don't know.

0:48:34 Jenessa: Comorbidity that's right and that's kind of what the emotion regulation hypothesis would say is they struggle with emotion regulation that causes depression therefore they have depression and And that's that medical model. That is, it's about you. You have a medical problem and it causes other medical problems.

0:48:43 Thomas: Gotcha. Now I'm with Yeah. Is it a different theory? Because I could also see it as, you know, we are very social animals. I could see just the experience of having a hard time fitting in just being, you the kind of thing that would cause that. Is that the same? Or is that different?

0:49:04 Jenessa: This is what they are arguing. That's more the emotional burden hypothesis. That if you were not experiencing these specific upsetting events, these upsetting events that are not only unique to ADHD and autistic kids, but are also happening at a way greater volume. A huge part of it being this fitting in feeling, because we'll get to the questions, if that weren't happening to you, would you still end up with depression at the end of it? Is there something inevitable about ADHD and autism that makes you depressed? You just can't emotionally regulate. You would have been depressed no matter what, even if we accommodated you. Or if we understood what it is that's different about you, we designed school for the neurotypical kids. We didn't design it thinking about you. If only we could make it a little more accommodating to you. This still happen? Then that's the emotional burden. That's what they're proposing is that alternative hypothesis that really fits more of a social model, I think. When we look at these questions, the the questions on this questionnaire that really show up as like this is what's bothering autistic kids way more than neurotypical and ADHD peers. They say peers talking behind my back, an unexpected wait in line. So they don't mind waiting in line, but unexpected, out of nowhere.

0:50:02 Thomas: Interesting.

0:50:34 Jenessa: Experiencing sensory discomfort. It's probably not super surprising. Rushed to complete work. Think you can see why that's the autism and not ADHD answer.

0:50:45 Thomas: That sounds great.

0:50:49 Jenessa: Understanding others. Peers teasing and bullying. And being pressured to do well. Well, the

0:50:56 Thomas: So I want to make make sure sure I understand because some of those things sounded like things that would bother anyone and some of them didn't. I think you already said, but just to make sure I've got it right. It's just because this is happening more often to these kids or like what was the form of the question exactly?

0:51:13 Jenessa: They had to rate on a scale from one to five, how frequently they are experiencing this.

0:51:17 Thomas: Frequently. Okay.

0:51:18 Jenessa: They used to ask frequently and intensity, but they found that those two, when you do a factor analysis, it just collapses into the same factor.

0:51:19 Thomas: Gotcha. Right. Right.

0:51:26 Jenessa: So it doesn't matter.

0:51:27 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:51:28 Jenessa: And it's very specifically when we do a a factor analysis, we find if wanted to look at your answers to these questions and try to figure out who's neurotypical, who's autistic, who has ADHD, those questions are like practically diagnostic. The autistic kids jump off the page, this is what's bothering them. They're experiencing it at way higher rates, reporting it at higher rates and reporting that it's very very upsetting for them. In the qualitative study, they're saying, yeah, this is really bothering me. The ADHD kids, so we can see how true this rings, teachers don't listen. I'm not listening to my teachers. They don't listened to me. Lessons or tasks, stopped from doing enjoyable things, and forgetting things, being told to try harder. Or, holy shit, we're coming back to this because I, being accused of something I didn't do, not doing something quite right, having too many options.

0:52:11 Thomas: Yeah. But that's not everybody. I guess not. OK. Ah, yeah.

0:52:32 Thomas: Interesting. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's 100 percent.

0:52:40 Jenessa: A lot of these rang true for me.

0:52:43 Thomas: Am really interested in the being accused of something I didn't do. That's fascinating. That

0:52:49 Jenessa: That one, actually, in the factor analysis, it kind of jumped out like a third factor. That question uh did heavily correlate with the other adhd questions so you could use it to pull out like the neurotypical and autistic kids are I mean sometimes they say this but it happens to them but not like the add kids but also there's a group of add kids who definitely say this and a group who don't.

0:53:18 Thomas: Is really interesting.

0:53:20 Jenessa: What's going on there, sometimes the way some kids with ADHD react to, see a misdiagnosis pretty frequently of like oppositional defiant disorder, that these kids are just very defiant of, you keep telling me me what to do I can't do it I don't want to do it this is very frustrating um trying to think how to describe this I feel like I experienced this in like I probably would have answered yes to this question um like medium frequency because what would happen is it's not so much I would get accused of like you know cheating or stealing well but I think I did get accused to cheating a lot because I couldn't keep my eyes on the goddamn paper I'm and I think that might be why it jumped out I bet you not all ADD kids had this experience but a lot of them did and they they diverged on this and it wasn't super clear why like this one question was almost a factor in and of itself which was weird so

0:54:03 Thomas: That's a pretty hyper specific thing, don't you think? That's what's weird to me about this one.

0:54:24 Thomas: Yeah, I'm like trying to make sense of it for me, because like I like there's a way it resonates for me. But I also feel like don't I know that it is at all what's happening here. You know, I don'T know that IT translates, but like I I can just really relate to, you the crap with Andrew happened, I'd see people talking about me in a way that was like crazy me that someone could have me so wrong in way. And I think this is why I don't know that this is going to what's be going on here. But for me, I'm trying to think through what it is because I have ADHD and can't fucking remember anything. I'm good luck being me and trying to like maintain some sort of lie or something like it just I just I'll I'll tell someone the next day and be like, oh, I forgot that was not something I was supposed to say. Like ADHD people. And maybe this could be it. We're very we are very frank because often it's hard to not share stuff like oversharing is a thing. As someone who had been, know, had lived 10 years of my life or more on the air, my sharing most like inner thoughts and seeing Andrew, someone who is a fucking fraud and doesn't actually share is just fake and seeing people being like, no, Thomas is the one who's actually a lizard. If you peel back, it was like it was so insane to me. Like me to this day. Like, do you really think that not just that, like, know, with Andrew, it's like it had to keep from slipping up. Up, I think for me, it was that, no, I talk like 24 fucking seven in intimate ways, like in, very, in you stories about me and who I am in my life and everything. Idea, what that could somehow have been this elaborate act is so fucking silly like it just really bothers me now I don't know that that has any connection to this but I also don't knows what this is I can't think of what it would be hmm

0:56:12 Jenessa: You know what? You're me put these puzzle pieces together, I think. Because I think it could be our behavior is often misinterpreted because we are neurodivergent. We don't behave in ways people expect.

0:56:16 Thomas: Please tell me

0:56:26 Jenessa: But partly I am wondering if it is that compared the same behavior and reporting a different reason for the behavior, behavior might we emotionally react to that more strongly than others like if I get a key I feel the same way you do if I Get Accused of like the reason you did this thing this one happens to me a lot where I'm like why did I say the thing I said it because it was true um you asked me a question and I answered it and all of a sudden everybody's mad and offended I don't even know what I did, what's happening, to get accused of having done that on purpose to piss you off.

0:56:25 Thomas: Yeah yeah yep hmm

0:57:10 Jenessa: The number of times I get accused of doing some kind of power play, it does, doesn't it?

0:57:14 Thomas: But that feels like an autism thing though So, because you said this was an ADHD factor.

0:57:20 Jenessa: One is an ADHD one. It's specifically this very hyper, upset about and it's happening to me a lot that I'm accused of something I didn't do. The autistic kids are saying I I don't understand other people's behavior. This is happening a lot and bothering me. The ADD kids are saying, no, screw you. I know exactly what I did and why. And you're accusing me of something I didn't do and I'm mad. So it might be a different reaction to a very similar brain thing happening. Could be.

0:57:53 Thomas: I think it's just a different, it seems like it's just a difference. It's a different thing. Because for a moment I was, yeah, I was thinking that, I feel like there's that, and maybe this is a trope too, but I think this is for a reason, like the very direct, you honest, autistic autistic Dr. House bullshit thing. I also think that it might, okay, no, now I see what you were saying.

0:57:57 Jenessa: Possibly. -hmm.

0:58:13 Thomas: I actually don't know that the autistic people get all that upset about that as much. Like

0:58:13 Jenessa: Yeah, yeah. And it might be more internalized beating your like autistic people might experience it more like beating themselves up about it or I'll give you one that's more like I wasn't mad at anyone that I think is more of an autistic thing um thinking I okay I had to people think literal thinking and they just like come up with these very silly like Like, I'm not going to understand, oh, raining cats and dogs. Yeah, I know there's not animals falling out of the sky. Like ,I have a brain.

0:58:49 Jenessa: Okay, I had to go to a CVS, and for reasons that I don't need to get into because it will take us all day, I had go to CVS I don' t normally go to three times in one day. At my usual CVS they say last name and I give them my last name. And at this one I walk up and they say, hi, who you picking up for? And I say, me. Me? And then she stares at me. And eventually I go, oh, Seymour. And I give her my name. The second time I go in, she goes, hi, who are you picking up for? And I go myself, SeymOUR. The third time I had to hype myself up. I was like, all right, all right. She's going to ask you who you're picking up for. She doesn't give a shit your relationship to who you'RE picking up for. The question is really probably that people come in there and if they say last name they

0:59:27 Thomas: Not gonna fuck this up they to check your name on a list or whatever yeah they want to look you up

0:59:41 Jenessa: They just give their name and then they're like who are you and you're like oh I'm picking up for my mom and they're like why are all these people so dumb and so you they're gonna ask you who you're picking up for and you're gonna not answer the question they ask you're gonna give your last name I know it feels weird to not just answer the fucking question they asked you but just say your last and she goes hi who you picking up and I just go seymour like it was like a whole process I felt like an asshole when she's just like who you picking up for and instead of being like me so I I think that's probably that not an experience most people have that

1:00:07 Thomas: Man oh wow that's so funny that's interesting well right well we're gonna leave it there for part one with Jenessa so much interesting stuff and there's so much more to talk about in part two so uh reminding you if you're a patron you already had these a while ago weeks ago actually so make sure to be a patron patreon.com/seriouspod and you would have already listened to this in one long part but if not no worries I'll see you for part two too, very soon. Am I hearing? What is that?

1:01:13 Jenessa: I was scratching my ear. Is that it? I got to mow the lawn.

1:01:19 Thomas: Like, nah, you like it.

1:01:21 Jenessa: Go Seymour like