- Speaker #0
When you are not properly nourished or rested, and you aren't having real brain rest, the difficulty level of everything is harder.
- Speaker #1
Welcome to Neurodivergent Spot. I'm your host, Sam Marion. My pronouns are he, him, and I am a multiply neurodivergent therapist, speaker, and creator. My work focuses on all things neurodiversity, but my particular interests are in autism, ADHD, learning differences, and learning disabilities. Today's guest is Shara Tipton. Shara, please introduce yourself to the listeners.
- Speaker #0
Hi, I'm Shara Tipton. My pronouns are she, her. I am a fat, queer, chronically ill, and multiply neurodivergent executive function coach. I also used to be a public school teacher. I really love neurodivergent community and communication, and so I'm really excited about this today.
- Speaker #1
Before we continue, I've got a quick disclaimer. This podcast is for information purposes only and should not be seen as a replacement for therapy, health care, or legal advice. Cher, I'm so glad you're here. I appreciate you sharing all these identities with us right at the front. I look forward to your perspectives that you're here to share with us today. But I want to jump right in. First question for you, what has your neurodivergent journey looked like?
- Speaker #0
I would say that it has been kind of a long entangled web. I had the unusual experience of being diagnosed with ADHD as a girl in the 90s, which I know is pretty rare. And then as an adult, realized that I have a bunch of overlapping neurodivergent conditions. I often avoid the specifics because I think the presence of developmental trauma, which I have, makes the lines between what are already overlapping conditions really extra blurry. And for me, I'm fine not knowing what symptoms and characteristics are baked in and which ones were acquired. Um, I think that getting a diagnosis in childhood was a mixed bag. I received some helpful supports, but also dealt with a lot of shame and stigma and a lot of unhelpful support, like being the only kid who had to have the teacher sign their planner each day or the only kid using like a weird word processing device at the front of the class while everyone was writing. And so I then have spent my career working with neurodivergent folks in like various capacities as an adult.
- Speaker #1
Um. I always feel like I've like found, I don't know, like, like pot of gold or unicorn. I don't know something. Anytime I find somebody who was diagnosed, you know, AFAB, ADHD as a child, I'm always just like, Whoa, you know, just, I, I work with a lot of folks and, and I don't run across that very often. You know, and I will tell you, I once had a client who was diagnosed as a little girl in the eighties and I was just like, Oh, you need to write a book. Um, so of course, like so many people, you talked about shame, uh, those experiences as a kid, um, and a quick follow-up question, and this is going to be an impossible question to answer, but I'm asking anyways, um, how do you think that shame balances out just maybe through your work? Um, people who experienced the shame with the diagnosis versus those who needed the diagnosis and the shame they felt.
- Speaker #0
It's really interesting because I feel like the experiences of shame have really different details, really different looks to them. But I think that the way that it impacts people in adulthood is largely really similar. It leads to the same kind of... I think a lot of people get into functional free states around doing stuff because of... shame attached to either doing stuff wrong, whether it was, I don't know why I'm doing it wrong or everyone knows that I'm different kind of wrong. And the, the impact. And I think like the work of adulthood around it tends to look more similar than I would have expected.
- Speaker #1
Got it. That makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate you sharing that insight. But I'm gonna keep going. Next question. Here we go. Your journey includes both classroom teaching and now coaching. What made you shift your focus to executive function coaching, and how has your own neurodivergence shaped your approach?
- Speaker #0
So I left teaching for a lot of reasons. A big one was the return to just like normal after COVID closures really broke my heart. I really thought we were at a moment of creating more humane and accessible schooling, and I really thought we wouldn't go back, and I was just really wrong. And then I was struggling with neurodivergent burnout and moral injury from working in public schools. And then I started kind of rising up the food chain with more leadership roles, which gave me a better view of the dysfunction, but no power to do anything about it still. And then finally, I got sick. I, like many neurodivergent people, have a connective tissue disorder that went undiagnosed until I started experiencing long COVID symptoms. So my journey toward coaching really started with medical leave and dreaming of like a five year plan that included an adult executive function coaching practice. But with time with leave, which is, you know, time to not work and to kind of start healing really helped. plus like great mentors and just like being able to focus on taking care of my health, I was able to start my practice less than a year after leaving teaching.
- Speaker #1
That's a really quick shift into building up that practice. It is heartbreaking to me when I think about the limited amount of accessibility in schools. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
really rough.
- Speaker #1
By the time people are listening to this episode, I will have just recently spoken at an educators conference where I'm going to talk about a presentation about one is why neurodiversity matters and then one about the autism spectrum. So understanding that more deeply. And even though I present two weeks from when we're recording, I can't finish those presentations because everything happening in our country right now that I'm going to have to, if I'm going to want it to be a good presentation, which I do.
- Speaker #0
it's gonna have to be up to the minute it it's it's just heartbreaking to me it really watching the like kind of like you acknowledge like the speed at which things seem to be falling apart in ways that we could not have anticipated the year ago um is just it's it's really rough um yeah you
- Speaker #1
I'm in a state that is on the part of the lawsuit trying to get rid of Section 504. I've called my state attorney general office and, you know, we'll see what happens. You know, what I've realized, because I had a post on Instagram that ended up in a very different part of Instagram than it normally exists, just in the last couple of days, is that when I referenced disability advocacy, most people took that to mean all about money. And. And I'm talking about, no, no, this is access. This is so much more than a money thing. You know, so it's just, it's really a hard time right now. And so to, I really respect making that choice for yourself, for your health and, you know, your mental health, all the different reasons to make that shift. And it's, and as you did so, find ways to still really make big impacts, which I promise you, right? If you have clients that are parents, this is helping kids still, without a doubt.
- Speaker #0
And I also, I do still, so my practice works with adults, but I also work for another organization called Academic Ascent, where I do coaching and tutoring with kids and teenagers. It's about maybe like a half to a third of my number of clients. And so I'm really glad that I actually am still connected to kids and get to work with kids and teenagers.
- Speaker #1
That's awesome. All right, I'm going to keep going here because it's time. So many thought questions that I've got in my mind, as always. Third question, many neurodivergent adults struggle with executive dysfunction in ways that aren't always obvious. What's one common challenge your clients face, and how do you help them navigate it?
- Speaker #0
So I think a thing that a lot of people deal with is some level of demand avoidance, whether they identify as having like a PDA profile or... just experienced what one of my clients calls the rat in a bag feeling, which is like when you have a task that you have to do, but the idea of doing that task feels like someone handing you a dirty bag that has a dead rat in it. And I think that a lot of people have relationships with certain types of tasks or just task initiation in general, where they have dark or dramatic thoughts or feelings in response to things that feel like they should be simple. And I think like a big way that that manifests for people is like just feeling like a piece of shit for not being able to open the email or feeling like a piece of shit for not being able to do their dishes. And so I think that like working with people on ways to address that internal resistance is really important and can make a big difference in like the level of shame people are experiencing and also just their like functionality.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that. That's such a hard task though, right? Helping people figure out how to overcome some of those things. So I'm always impressed when people are. I can be happy with myself for like giving some good feedback or something, but every time somebody manages that and they do overcome that, I'm just always impressed.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, me too. And I think that being a executive function coach with like lived experience in this stuff, I think like that relationship with clients is really where that is able to kind of start getting like unpacked a little bit because I think just being able to be like, Oh, being in relationship with someone who does not feel shame about my dirty dishes or my unopened emails anymore. Um, there's something really healing about like having exposure to someone who's living life in a way that like is wrong and, uh, realizing that like, it can be very chill.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, that makes sense too. Uh, I did a certificate program. Um, I finished it. August of 2024 through Landmark College. It's a certificate in learning differences and neurodiversity. And I did the emphasis in executive function. And true question that I asked them before I applied was, can a person with limited executive functioning complete a certificate in executive functioning? And as it turns out, that's not an uncommon question for people to ask. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
that makes sense that it would feel. Like, is this a fit, but also that it might be a really good fit.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it was, I learned a lot through that, but it's, so yeah, let's keep going here. For someone who feels overwhelmed by their executive functioning struggles, what's one small but impactful first step they can take toward better self-management?
- Speaker #0
I think a really big thing, and this goes against where a lot of people are pulled, but I think it's rest. I think it's. to stop trying harder to do things and instead focusing on meeting your basic needs. So getting meaningful and satisfying rest, sleep, food, those things lower the difficulty level of the things that you have to do. When you are not properly nourished or rested and you aren't having real brain rest, the difficulty level of everything is harder. And I feel like a lot of neurodivergent people get stuck in a space where they're for minutes or hours a day trying to do something, like about to do something in five minutes. I'll start at three o'clock. I'll start and just like keep pushing it and it's not happening and it's stressful. And your brain has actually been working on that task for however long you've been stuck, even if you haven't been making progress on it. And so learning how to actually rest and. stop trying so your brain can have some time and space to like recover just makes doing things from there way easier.
- Speaker #1
Do you have any strategies that you recommend for people to actually rest?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think part of it is scheduling it. I think like putting on their calendar, blocking out. So like they know that this is time that they are intentionally not trying to do other stuff. This is time where the goal is to not do anything. And then it's working with people to figure out like what actually feels restful to them. Like does playing video games feel restful or is that actually kind of stressful? Because for different people, they can have a totally different experience with that. So it's about a lot of kind of like trial and error and talking through like what rest feels like in your own body and how you can access that in different ways.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I talk to people sometimes about the difference between rest and recovery. And there's a Venn diagram, huge overlap. But there may be some activities that we need for recovery that are not restful and vice versa. And we need all of this. Yeah, it is interesting how often people have such a hard time with rest. I absolutely see it. I'd like to go back and give you a chance to maybe dive a little bit deeper in any one of these questions. Is there somewhere you'd like to return to? Yeah,
- Speaker #0
I'd love to return to number two.
- Speaker #1
Okay, where are we going with number two?
- Speaker #0
I just want to talk a little bit more about like my journey because I think that I am, I didn't know that a life like I have right now is possible. And so I am excited to share it because I want other people to have some exposure to kind of creating your life with a like focus on making things accessible to yourself rather than trying harder. Because that's really the big shift that I made that made my life better that I tried to really work with clients on as well. And like I, I think all neurodivergent people deal with inconsistent capacity in some kind of way. I think that like not knowing if productive you was waking up or like nonproductive you was waking up can be a tricky thing. And then for me dealing with like chronic migraines, chronic pain and chronic fatigue just makes that capacity all the more inconsistent. And by the end of my career in public schools. I had spent years going to sleep between 5 to 7 p.m. And at the time, I treated it like a silly quirk, like, oh, I go to bed so early. But looking back, I realized how sick I was and that I was missing a third of my life for years. I didn't experience evenings or nights at all. And so it's really nice to have a full day and night back available to me. But it has meant being creative. and accommodating for myself to figure out like that I need to work from home right now and that having flexible schedule is important to me and that I need accessibility tools like a cane and like medication and things like pink migraine glasses just lots of things that make life a little bit easier when combined make things a lot easier um and I think that um to kind of rewind back to like the transition between teaching and coaching i loved teaching so much that and it was breaking my heart so much that i actually was afraid to find another job that i would love i felt like the love was maybe part of the problem and that um because i cared so much for my students that the moral injury of working in this dysfunctional place was like that much harder um And I love coaching so much. I love a lot of the same things that I loved about teaching. I love about coaching. And the fact that I get to spend basically all day, every day, just talking to other neurodivergent people is so cool. And like I, my clients are like so brilliant and interesting. And like, I just, it's really a dream. Like I get to like really do the parts of my work that feel. really interesting and challenging and satisfying. And it's outside of a system that was really dysfunctional. Um, and it is just like, I thought I was going to have to work in a cubicle instead of a classroom. Um, and I couldn't have, like when I first left, I could not have fathomed where I am right now. And, um, I love where I am right now.
- Speaker #1
I love that. And yeah, finding a space you love, it makes such a difference. You've used or you've referenced a couple of times moral injury. I just wanted to find that real quick because I don't think that's anything we talked about on the podcast so far. And I didn't talk, I don't talk about this a ton, but my background is as a trauma therapist originally. And people sometimes kind of use those words a little bit, maybe too interchangeably because they're not. And the easy distinction there is like, yes, moral injury is traumatic, but the difference there is trauma is fear-based and moral injury is shame-based uh so maybe i won't fully define it all but like just giving that part and i just say all that just to tie it back to sort of how many you know how common shame is in the neurodivergent experience and then adding moral injury into that which is you know it is working in a space where you disagree with what you're having to do um right like you're having for your work having to go against your morals and So that wound is so deep and real. And so to now be in a space, Cheryl, where you show up to work with clients every day in an authentic way as you, while you're also taking care of you. And that's such a transformation. That's really neat. I'm glad you shared so much more of your story with us. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
thank you. It has been, yeah, like just realizing that there. when you're feeling stuck, there are options that you can't see and you might not know what they are, but even just knowing that they're out there and that like your journey is to kind of figure out what they are, I think can like hopefully really help people who are feeling stuck, maybe feel a little less stuck.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. So Shara, I'm wrapping up here. But for people who've listened to you, I might need to work with Shara or learn from Shara. How can they get in contact? How can they learn more from you?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, so my website is my name, sharathipton.com. So S-H-A-R-A-T-I-P-T-O-N.com. I do have space available for new clients. I offer free consults. You can also find me on Instagram at wellness pun. Um, and I feel like that is a decent place to start if you're not necessarily looking for coaching right now, but are like interested to maybe hear a little bit more about executive dysfunction or learn a little bit about me. Um, that is a good place to start.
- Speaker #1
And I will absolutely have all of that stuff linked in the show notes. So listeners just go check the, those notes have a link straight there. Uh, you can connect with Shara. So again, Shara, thank you so much for being here. Um, And everybody, thanks for listening to Nerd Avergent Spot. Again, I am Sam Marion. If you enjoyed this episode, I hope that you'll subscribe. Share the episode with anybody who you think could benefit. You can find me on Instagram at Nerd Avergent Spot. And from there, you can find all my other places online.
