Speaker #0Welcome to NeuroDivergent Spot. I'm your host, Sam Marion. My pronouns are he, him, and I am a multiple 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. This is the final episode of this first season, and I've had a blast making the season. I've really enjoyed the interviews. I've enjoyed the people that I've spoken with, and I've really... been grateful for their vulnerability, their honesty, and I hope that you have too. So I'm going to pause right now and just ask you that if you have enjoyed this, share it with somebody, follow the show, give a review. All of these things are meaningful and they help other people find the show. It means a lot to me personally that you've all shown up here. And so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to answer questions. It's what I've asked guests to do. They've let me ask them some personal questions and I've put them on the spot. They've had 60 seconds to answer. So I've got six questions that I'm going to answer today and I'm going to give myself 60 seconds for each one. So before I get started, just a quick disclaimer, the information shared in this podcast should not be taken as therapy, healthcare, or legal advice. So let's start. Number one, who am I? Okay. Just like I did for my guest, I set a timer for 60 seconds. So I'm going to do that for myself as well. So like I said, my name is Sam Marion and I am a multiply neurodivergent therapist, speaker, creator. I do a lot of different things. I am autistic, ADHD. I was identified as gifted. I have a learning disability around reading. I have significant executive function challenges. I'm probably forgetting more on the list. I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I love doing a lot of different things. I'm somebody who loves different projects. I love working with clients. I have autistic clients that are from like age six into their sixties. I work with families, individuals. I love it. You know, I said, I'm a speaker. I speak at conferences of varying disciplines actually. And I really enjoy doing that. My clinical work, it's not just autistic folks. I have ADHD. My background is a trauma therapist. And so I really do work in a wide range of ways and I love every bit of it. I've also been really enjoying my time on social media as well over the last about a year and a half. Next question, what does neurodiversity mean to me? This is kind of a hard question for me to answer because I want to get into the very specifics first of just, to me, it's differences in nervous systems that exist amongst the human population. But what does that actually mean? It means that we all experience the world in different ways. We each have our unique way of experiencing the world, the way that our sensory systems feel, whether it's touch, it's taste, smell, or even our differences, interception, proprioception, which is, you know, a little bit different sensory experiences than what we talk about a lot of times. It's different ways that we think about things. I'm not a linear thinker. So when I present to audiences, it's difficult for me to remember the order of my slides. And I always think I did it wrong because my brain thinks of it differently. Some people are linear. We have all these different ways and I think it's a beautiful thing. I think neurodiversity is incredibly important that when we all bring our differences together and we accept these differences and we embrace them, there's so much strength that comes out of that. Question number three, what was my neurodivergent journey? My neurodivergent journey has been lifelong, without a doubt. I didn't have the language for it. until probably summer of 2022. By early fall, late summer 2022, I came to recognize that I am autistic. And that was sort of the final part of the picture that I needed to understand myself as neurodivergent, even though I didn't have the language of neurodivergent before. I was identified gifted as an early elementary student. And... That was clear, but I always knew throughout school that I had challenges in reading, but I was really good at compensating, so it didn't show up so much. I was identified as ADHD through a diagnostic process in college, but I rejected it because it didn't feel like the full picture. I embraced it, and I accept it now because at this point in my life, understanding autism, I had this full picture of who I am. There's a lot of challenges throughout my life with this, and my life looks different now than I ever thought it would look. But that's thanks to understanding my neurodivergence. Next question. Why did I start neurodivergence spot? I'm somebody who I'm always starting a new project, especially when I'm sort of under stress. My brain gets an idea and I run with it. And so neurodivergence spot, I had thought about. Starting a podcast and I'd actually recorded some solo episodes in fall 2023 never released them anywhere I kind of moved on from that but this idea I had honestly I had a bad day on a Friday and on Saturday morning I went for a long walk about three miles and when I got home from the walk I had the name of the podcast I had the format. I had some early guests that I wanted to interview I had all that in my mind. I sort of decided. All right, i'm gonna give it a try and I did I launched it pretty quick after coming up with the concept all the way through. So that's sort of the why I started the project. And I'll talk a little bit later about sort of my hopes for it in the next question. I think that'll expand on itself. That is the next question though. What are my hopes for Nerd Divergent Spot? And my biggest hope is that through this podcast, people will feel seen. People will hear a guest. sharing their own experience, that you, that you will hear a guest sharing their own experience and you will feel heard or seen. You'll connect to what they're sharing and you'll relate. Not to everybody, not to every experience that anybody has, but there'll be moments because so much of living as an under-virgin person is masking it and it's hiding it. And it's holding these feelings because sometimes we feel isolated. We feel alone. We don't realize other people experience it. And as these people have shared so far and more will share, there's challenges, there's successes that I hope that you will feel seen and you'll connect to some of their answers. All right, question number six. What are common themes I've seen in guests? You know, a big common theme that I think has shown up has been people recognizing their neurodivergence later in life for the guests who are neurodivergent, right? That's been a common theme, finding language later in life. And then there's this reflection back on life. And I see this in a lot of clients too. So this is really, really common for late identified folks that we reflect back through life and we come to realize, oh, like that is why I did this when I was a kid. This better explain so many moments. People reflect over pictures from in their elementary school, report cards, notes from teachers. I have some documents from when I was a small child that I look back and go, oh, whoa, this is completely describing an autistic kid, an neurodivergent kid. And that's been such a theme. And I think others listening will probably have connected with those themes as well and have these moments and experiences that they feel really relatable through that. But it's not just in childhood. It's in the workplace, professional settings. It's a lot of ways. that people have really felt this. All right, just want to go back for my deep dive. And here's the question that I'm asking myself, and it's what do I hope listeners will take away from the podcast? And I think my answer has two parts to this. I hope that through the vulnerability of the guests, I hope that you take away their very real struggles and their very real successes. I don't want to make a podcast that makes it seem like neurodivergence is a superpower because while there are some moments where I may feel that about myself at times, the way my brain works a little bit differently than others has strengths to it. There are very real challenges that come along with it. And I think that some of the guests did a really beautiful job in sharing that. So I hope that these are things that you connect with. I hope that if you're listening and maybe you you know somebody maybe it's you maybe somebody you love who has a similar struggle or face similar challenge to somebody who has shared that their successes give you hope i hope that it all kind of that it works together right because success is not as meaningful unless we see the way that people work hard and found supports and but really struggled and for many people It was years of just being lost. And when we talk about successes, some of these are little. Some successes that I have in my life that I count as a success, many people would view them as pretty small, but they're really a big deal to me. So we really can't scale that either. So I hope that's what people are taking away. I hope that it's meaningful. I hope that you enjoyed it. I hope that there's moments that you just feel a connection. that you feel heard, feel seen through the sharing of experiences from others. And I hope that you'll come back for the next season. I'm currently already recording. And I'm having to resist the urge to just keep releasing, to give myself the chance to kind of reset, get structure, keep the structure in place. Because those are some very real needs that I have. And for this project to be sustainable for me, it's going to require that I do keep structure around it. So like I said at the beginning, I hope that if you've enjoyed this, you give me a review. It means a lot, helps people find the show. When you leave a little bit of detail in the review about what you enjoyed about it, then others can understand why they may also appreciate it. I hope you'll share the show. You know someone else who may benefit, even if it's just one episode. There's a certain episode that you know that someone you love or care about would connect with it. Share that. Connect on social media. I'm there. I'm on Instagram, at NerdDivergentSpot. I'm at other places, but you can find me best through at NerdDivergentSpot on Instagram. If you want to be around for the next season, make sure that you're following somewhere so that you'll find out when one is coming and any other updates I have along the way. Remember, if you are looking for a speaker, trainer, consultant, let me know. Reach out. Let's see how we can work together. Again, thank you for listening. Thank you for joining me on this start of the journey. We've got a long way to go. But I'm Sam Marion. Thank you so much.
